“I…I can’t. I’m wounded in both sides,” the suspect finally spoke.
“Okay, then hold out your arms as far as you can and hold perfectly still.” The man did as he was told as well as he could. Carpelli stepped in front of the open door and pointed his gun at the man. The man looked up and his face took on the knowing look of recognition.
“It’s you,” he said. “The file said you were tough. But why are you working for them?”
“First off, I work for lots of people and some aren’t what you would call nice. Second, no one puts a contract on me, and third, it was time Anthony Conners got what he deserved for the crimes he has committed. The young lady didn’t deserve to die just because someone thought she might have overheard something. The guy that owns this house doesn’t deserve to die because his wife left him and she turned up missing. The attorney has been his friend and employee for twenty years and never once broke the client/attorney confidentiality pledge, until now. And I certainly don’t deserve to die simply because I brought him bad news.”
“Yeah, it’s a tough business,” the man said and coughed up a little blood.
“Get a medic in here!” Carpelli yelled.
An officer stepped in to frisk the man and the medics followed behind him as soon as the officer stated it was clear. Carpelli then turned to Beals who was standing in the opening to the stairs up to the master bedroom.
“You can tell him it’s safe to come out now,” Carpelli said, suggesting Beals alert Tyler Stone. Beals remained stationary and just shook his head. Beals had already gone up to check on him. “What? How?” Carpelli asked.
“He was shot through the floor,” Beals stated as he looked at the dead gunman at the foot of the stairs.
“He was kneeling next to his computer desk, right where I told him to be. That way he’d be out of the line of fire from anyone shooting in from the top of the stairs and he’d get a drop on anyone who decided to rush him. I even had him wear a vest to help protect him. The bullets, though, cut right through the ceiling and the wood flooring, straight up into him. I was trying to protect him and I got him killed,” Beals stated. He then asked, “Williams?” Though he knew what the answer was already since he hadn’t heard him talking.
“I’m sorry. He took five or six to the chest and the vest stopped them but the impact must have stopped his heart,” Carpelli answered.
“Shit, that’s gonna hurt the hell out of his wife and kids,” Beals replied. “I need a minute,” Beals stated, then turned and walked away. He picked his way through the crowd of growing officers, EMS techs and crime scene techs that were arriving by the truckload now. Beals stood off in a corner of the porch as the rain finally started falling in earnest.
Carpelli walked up and stood next to him but waited for a couple of minutes before he spoke up.
“I have some information that I’m free to reveal now that Tyler Stone is dead,” he said.
“Oh, like you think he was dirty? Join the club.”
“Yeah, I leaned on him pretty hard to get him to confess,” Carpelli shared. “He as much said the bodies were buried in the garden.”
“I might be able to get the DA to okay me digging up the garden and prove the validity of your theory. But before I do that, I need to know where you fit into all of this?” Beals asked.
“My name’s not Nate Harcorte,” Carpelli stated as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled in the distance providing a dramatic effect.
“Oh?” Beals replied sarcastically.
“I’m an ex-cop named John Carpelli. I’m from Newark originally. I was a bit over-ambitious back in the day. I thought I was impervious to the troubles other cops had and I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar along with several higher ups. They gave me a choice—quit after testifying or go to jail. I quit. I was hired by Jackson Bender because I knew how to investigate and I’ll cut corners to get at the truth. With each new job he gave me, the money got better until he was the only guy I worked for. I didn’t do any wet work, but I’m not above breaking a few heads and borrowing what evidence I needed to make the cases for him.” Beals interjected at this point.
“Don’t tell me and I won’t ask,” Beals offered.
“That’s all right by me. Anyway, after you stopped by Anthony Conners’ office, he was hot to find his son or to find out what happened to him. So I was called in and told to find him ASAP. The first place I went was Danny’s apartment. I found the made up crime scene and it led me to April’s place, where I found another made up crime scene. I went to talk with April at the hospital and found her story believable. No one but a stone cold addict would even try that crap she had in her system.
“She wasn’t a real addict, just some idiot that used cocaine recreationally because she thought it made the sex better. An honest relationship would have done a far better job for her.
“I then went to see Tyler Stone and he gave off so many bad vibes that my gut hurt for two days after talking to him. While I was doing all this looking and talking, I was also reporting what I was finding. Unbeknownst to me or April and certainly not to Tyler, Danny had stolen over a million dollars from his old man by skimming it off drug deals, and when he disappeared, his old man got spooked. He ordered everyone involved, no matter how flimsy the connection, to be killed. He didn’t want any word of his son’s theft to get out or any embarrassing documents to find their way to the DA.
“When Jackson told me about the contract on me, he did so knowing it was against the rules of the game. He did so because we had been friends for years and he didn’t feel it was right or fair. He also realized that if the boss was going to whack everyone involved, he’d be whacking him as soon as the other loose ends were handled,” Carpelli explained.
“Damn, that’ll make one hell of a novel, but what about the evidence?” Beals asked. Carpelli pulled the folded up photos from his pocket and handed them to Beals. “What’s this? Flower pictures?”
“I found them by accident stuck in between studs in the door frame of the garage. It got me thinking, so I broke into Tyler’s house and checked things out on his computer. I found the pictures had a date and time stamp from the day before the disappearances. I walked all through his house and found the guy has lots of paperback books and every one was about murder or studies dealing with murders. He had spent three years learning all he could about how to commit the perfect murder,” Carpelli explained Tyler Stone’s planning.
“But it’s still all circumstantial and hearsay,” Beals noted.
“The only way you’ll know if what I’ve shared with you is true is if you dig up that garden. I’d make sure the hole is deep and look for some oddity that makes it harder to find the bodies. He would have thought of that.”
“I’m without a partner now. I think I can get you hired on, if you’d like to be legal again. You’re damn good at this,” Beals offered.
“Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. I wouldn’t know how to do it legally anymore. Besides, I may be retiring,” Carpelli replied, “but there is one thing you could do for me.”
“Oh, like what?”
“Report Nate Harcorte as one of the people killed tonight. That way, if Conners manages to have a long reach, he won’t be reaching for me.”
“I’m sure the DA can get you in witness protection.”
“Yeah, it’s not my style,” Carpelli stated.
“Yeah, I couldn’t do it either. So, what will you do now?”
“Well, first I’m going to the hospital and get my broken ribs looked at. I took a couple to the vest. I was lucky it was at long range and I had put in an extra plate or I’d be partnering with Williams right about now. Then I’m getting back on the road and we’ll see how far my car will make it before it dies.”
“I hope it works out for you.”
“Yeah, me too. Just don’t wish me good luck.”
EPILOGUE
Despite the strong circumstantial evidence, the DA wouldn’t let Beals dig up the garden in T
yler Stone’s backyard. The DA had Anthony Conners by the short hairs and he wasn’t about to let anything interfere with that. He went so far as to order Beals to turn over everything he had on the case against Tyler Stone. He then burned the files in a metal trash can he kept in his office for just such purposes.
Anthony Conners was convicted and sentenced to death row for several murders he had commissioned, as well as fifty-five years to life for his many other crimes. He made a deal though with the Feds, commuting his sentence to life in prison in return for his testimony against five other crime bosses, all of which was front page news. He had also worked out in the deal to be housed in a prison far away from where the other bosses would be and most likely away from their reach.
He ended up in Montana in solitary confinement. Six months later, he was dead from food poisoning. No one was ever charged with his murder.
All of the other bosses were convicted in a joint prosecution by the Feds and the local DA. They were sentenced to fifty years or life, whichever came first. The DA ran for governor after the prosecutions, and won in a landslide as the man who had cleaned up the corruption in the city.
Four years later, he was convicted of influence peddling and spent five years in prison himself. He hired Ms. Hunter to defend him and she found a loophole that kept him from doing even longer time.
The attorney, Jackson Bender, spent eight months in a minimum security facility in Alabama before he was stricken with cancer. He was then transferred to another prison with hospital facilities capable of dealing with his new health issues, but he never arrived. The U.S. Marshals Service gave him a new name and new address in, of all places, Vermont. He beat the non-existent cancer and lives on a lake there writing crime stories under an assumed name but never does public appearances.
April Jennings disappeared into the system and no one ever heard from her again.
Detective Beals remained on the force and was later promoted to Captain. When he retired he moved to Florida with his wife and now spends his time playing with his grandkids and fishing in the Gulf Stream.
Wendy Stone’s and Danny Conners’ whereabouts remain listed as unknown.
Carpelli relocated, as he planned, to a city a couple of hundred miles south and started his life over doing exactly what he’d been doing. Only this time, he was going to try to avoid working for the bad guys.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cliff Roberts is originally from Michigan but currently resides at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains in Sevierville, TN. Cliff is married to Donna, who is his biggest fan and his true inspiration. Between them they have six grandchildren: Dante, Nate, Natalie, Dillon, Jake and Trevor. Cliff tries to name characters in his books after them as often as possible.
When Cliff isn’t writing he’s usually reading or playing with his grandkids, but he also loves to travel as well as enjoy photography, woodworking, movies, inventing, fishing, boating and football.
Cliff Roberts Thriller Box Set Page 37