No Way to Die

by M. D. Grayson

  “And they seemed like they were a couple?” Toni asked.

  “Well,” he said, “I presumed as much.” He thought for a second, and then said,“I mean, it’s not like they were hanging all over each other, nothing like that. But I figured a man brings in a good-looking girl like that, he’s either trying to impress her, or he really cares for her and is worried about her. Maybe that’s all it was.”

  “No matter,” Toni said. “We can figure that out later. Do you remember what happened here in the store? Anything they might have said?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “As I recall, this guy said that his girlfriend—I’m not sure he used that term—anyway, his girlfriend was being threatened by an old love flame who didn’t want to accept the fact that she’d moved on.”

  “They seemed sincere?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” Grant said. “I told him he was right to be concerned. You hear over and over how some scumbags harass their former wives or girlfriends. They laugh at restraining orders. The way I see it, if some idiot’s too fucked up to be able to control himself and stay away from a woman—even if it means risking jail—then that’s the kind of person you need to watch out for.”

  “Makes sense to me,” I said. “So they came in asking for some way for her to protect herself.”

  “Actually,” he said, “they came in asking specifically for a Smith &Wesson M&P360 .357 Magnum and four boxes of Federal LE Hydra-Shok Hollow Point cartridges.”

  “They knew to ask for that?” I asked.

  “Yeah. That’s what struck me—that and the fact that the girl was good-looking. They didn’t seem to know shit about firearms, but they’d obviously done some homework. I mean, the girl actually had a list. She said they wanted a simple-to-use, powerful handgun, so they’d picked the S&W .357. For what they described, I couldn’t argue with them. Stone simple, very powerful.”

  Indeed. A .357 round actually has more power than my .45, even though the .45 has a bigger diameter bullet. I don’t like shooting .357s, though, because I don't like the heavy trigger pull. Besides, they recoil so hard that it feels like shooting a cannon. Theykick like a mule. I never had a problem with stopping power on the .45, and it doesn’t recoil so dramatically. I don’t need anything more powerful.

  “So they come in, ask for a .357, and you sell it to them, right?” I ask.

  “Let me see,” he said. He used the reference number from the sale report and entered it into a search function on his own computer. A second later, a copy of the actual sales transaction appeared.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” he said. “That and the ammunition, and it looks like a Bianchi holster.”

  “And Thomas Rasmussen is the one who paid?”

  “Yep. MasterCard. Like I said, I thought he was buying it as a present for her.”

  “And you ran the NCIS check?”

  “Of course. He checked out fine. He didn’t have a permit, so he had to wait the five days.” In Washington, if you have a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon, you’re exempted from the five-day waiting period from the time of purchase to the time of delivery. Otherwise, you have to wait. “He came back in by himself a week later and picked up the gun.”

  “Did they get any range time?” Toni asked.

  “Yeah, I recall they did. After the purchase was confirmed, I took them over to the range. I walked them through the basic safety steps, showed them how to operate the gun, that sort of thing. Pretty simple gun, really.”

  “Were they able to do it?”

  “Well, it was just her. The guy didn’t shoot at all.”

  “Okay, was she able to handle it?”

  “I remember now—I’d have to say no, she wasn’t up to proficiency standards when she left.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well,you know that the .357is a beast.I think she was scared of the gun. For that matter, after the first couple of rounds, I’m not even sure she had her eyes open when she fired it. She did this thing where she’d aim, then kind of look away and start to close her eyes, then fire. She actually put a hole in my ceiling.”

  I laughed. At a range, the bullets are not supposed to hit the floor, not supposed to hit the ceiling, not supposed to hit the walls. They’re only supposed to hit the backstop. Despite this, most ranges are marked with the scars of bullet wounds in the floor, the ceiling, and the walls—mostly from the newbies.

  “I thought it was too much gun for her, and I told them this,” he said. “I thought that a .380 or a 9 mil would make more sense, but they insisted. They said they understood and that she would come in and practice. Actually, I know plenty of ladies who shoot a .357 with no problem, but it’s not usually their first firearm. I told her that if she needed to use it in the meantime, just cock it with her thumb, hold on tight with both hands, and let her fly.”

  “Use it single-action, then?” I asked. You didn’t technically need to cock the gun before you shot it.

  “Yeah. If you cock it first, then the trigger pull is way lighter. It’s a lot easier to shoot, especially for the ladies.”

  I nodded. “And is that the last you saw of them?”

  “Let me see.” He checked his database. “Well, I can say for certain that he didn’t join the range as a member. He might have come in without joining—we allow people to do that, but we don’t keep records of it. And as for her, what did you say her last name was?”

  “Kenworth,” Toni said.

  He looked the name up on his computer. “Nope—no Holly Kenworth, either.”

  "I hate to ask," he said, "but was this the gun Thomas Rasmussen used to kill himself with?"

  "I'm afraid so," I said.

  "Damn," he said. "I've been here seven years and this makes three times now. I hate this part of it."

  "Guns are a tool," I said. "Most of the time, people use them the right way. Every now and again, though, they get misused. It's not the gun's fault. It's not your fault, either. How many hundreds - thousands of guns have you sold in the same period that were used correctly?"

  "Yeah, I know," he said. "Still, it sucks."

  I nodded as I stood up. We shook hands. "We really appreciate your help,” I said.

  “Not a problem,” Grant said. “Say, on a happier note, how’s that Les Baer I sold you working out for you? Still running like it should?”

  “It’s great,” I said. “Not one single malfunction to date.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “Just the way it’s supposed to be.”

  We said our good-byes and hopped in the Jeep.

  * * * *

  Our next appointment was at threethirty with Inez Johnson. On a case that has any police involvement at all, I don’t like to go too long between briefings. I don’t want them starting to wonder what we’re doing. Most police officers are suspicious by nature. The best way to avoid feeding those suspicions is to keep them completely “in the loop.”

  We had to hustle to cross back over the 520 floating bridge (now up to $20 in tolls for the day).I didn’t figure the meeting would take long, as we were still in the first week and had yet to uncover any real “smoking-gun” type evidence yet. We did have a potential conflict between Holly’s testimony and those of Katherine, Stella, and Jonas. We did have a potential motivation with Madoc Secured. We definitely had an interesting underlying motivator in the Starfire Protocol. But we didn’t have anything solid yet.

  We entered the police department’s sixth-floor lobby at threethirty, just as Inez was walking in to greet us. We said hello, and she took us back to her office.

  “Detective Johnson,” I said, “do you mind if I start off our briefing by asking you a question?”

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “We bumped into a fellow named Nicholas Madoc. He said you gave him our name—you told him we were investigating Thomas Rasmussen’s death on behalf of the family. We wanted to confirm this.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” she said. “Two men showed up the day before yesterday and s
aid they were considering offering to help the family—apparently they’ve got some kind of business connection. They asked who they should talk to, and I told them to talk to you. Why? Is there a problem?”

  “No,” I said. I told her about Madoc and the strange actions of MST. We also told her about our meeting with Dr. Valeria, with John Ogden, and with the personnel from ACS.

  She listened to the report. “Well,” she said, “you’ve been busy. Thank you for the update. I hate to cut you short, but I've had another meeting pop up that I have to attend. I guess we can short-circuit this meeting by you answering one question. If you were me, would you reopen the case?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “So far, we have hunches and notions. But do any of these things mean that Thomas Rasmussen didn’t commit suicide? That he was murdered? No. Not yet, anyway.”

  “There you are, then,” she said, rising to her feet. “I think you two need to keep digging. Meanwhile, I see no reason to reopen the case at this point.”

  “We’ll keep you posted,” I said. “Our suspicions are what you might call ‘growing.’ I think we’re starting to feel like there could be something behind Thomas Rasmussen’s death other than a suicide. If we get anything stronger—”

  “Then you give me a call,” she said.

  “Right,” I nodded.

  I hadn’t expected anything else, but we’d done our job. Five minutes after we arrived, we were through. At least we were cleared from having to report in for the next week or so.

  * * * *

  We pulled into the parking lot at Logan PI at four thirty. By five, everyone was pretty much wrapped up. We met in the lobby on the way out.

  “Kenny Hale,” I said, “a quick question before you take off.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Did you happen to leave a message on the door last night with directions for the delivery man?”

  “Ah—no,” he said hesitantly. This was a surprise. I turned to Doc.

  “Doc?”

  Before he could answer, Kenny jumped back in. “I mean, no, it wasn’t for the delivery guy.” He leaned over and pulled a crumpled paper from the trash can by our receptionist desk. “It was for my friend Dale.”He handed me the note. I read it aloud: “Dale—will be at company anniversary party at Merchant’s Café this evening. Please leave disk next door. I’ll get it in the morning.”

  “That would do it,” Toni said.

  “Do what?” he asked.

  “Did you stop to wonder how Madoc knew where we were last night?” I asked.

  “You mean—”

  “Yep. They came to our office and read your note.”

  “Holy shit,” he said.

  “Dumbass,” Doc said. “You should have just left directions for them.”

  “No shit,” Toni said.

  “Obviously, we’ve got to tighten up, folks,” I said. “If the Madoc guys are really bad guys, at some point we can expect them to stop playing patty-cake with us and start getting hostile for real. When that happens, we’d better have our shit together.” I stared at Kenny. “Understood?”

  He nodded. “Sorry, guys,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

  I nodded. “Good. Maybe I should have Doc stick with you all weekend to make sure you don’t get us killed between now and Monday morning.”

  He looked mortified. “I can’t—he can’t,” he said. “I’ve got a date tonight. He’d definitely get in the way.”

  “What,” Toni said, “not enough eighteen-year-olds to go around?”

  “I can’t do it anyway,” Doc said. “I’m going out, too.”

  I looked at him. “Doc?You too? You have a date?”

  He looked at me. “Why so shocked? What am I—ugly or something?”

  “No, no,” I said, holding up my hands. “It’s not like that at all.”

  “I think you’re quite handsome, Doc,” Toni said.

  “Thank you,” he said to her.

  “I’ve just—I mean, you haven’t—” I started to say that Doc had only rarely gone out on dates since his live-in girlfriend had been killed in a traffic accident six years ago. I decided not to go there.

  “I’m glad for you, amigo,” Toni said. “You have a good time.”

  I nodded. “Me too, dude.”

  He nodded. “Cool.”

  “So what about you,” Kenny said to Toni. “I heard you on the phone sounding all gushy and shit.”

  She glared at him. “Were you eavesdropping on me, you little twerp?”

  “Hi, John,” Kenny imitated Toni in a falsetto voice. “Sure, John. Love to, John. Should I go topless, John?” He reverted back to his normal voice. “Just a wild shot in the dark, but I’m guessing you’re going out with some poor schmo named John.”

  “I am,” she said. “And he’s no schmo.”

  I looked at her. She noticed me looking and said, “He just called.”

  I looked at her for a few seconds, and then I smiled and said, “Good. Great. You’ll have a good time. I hope all three of you have good times.”

  “What about you, boss?”Kenny asked. “Is the FBI in the house this weekend?”

  “Nope. I’m on my own.” I thought about everyone else going out tonight. I was glad for them, but a little lonely for myself. I decided right then what I was going to do. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I’m taking my guitar and my fishing pole, and I’m heading for the mountains. See you all on Monday.”

  Chapter 12

  I DIDN’T WANT to hang around my apartment Friday night, so I loaded the Jeep and took off in the dark. I took the Edmonds–Kingston ferry and then drove to the Olympic National Park’s north entrance near Port Angeles. I got in late and set up camp in the pitch black. At least it wasn’t raining. I curled up in my bag and slept like a rock.

  Saturday morning, I woke to the sounds of birds singing in the trees. I stepped out of my tent into—wait for it—beautiful sunshine! In fact, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day long. Temperatures rose to the mid-fifties. It was a glorious spring day (although it technically wouldn’t be spring for another couple of weeks).

  First thing, I went for a good long trail run—maybe fifteen miles or so. I like running on the streets in the city well enough, but if I can, I really like running trails in the woods.I have plenty of time to think without having to worry about cars pulling out unexpectedly. Instead of breathing in exhaust fumes, I get to smell clean air and pine trees. There’s no traffic trying to run me over. There are no pedestrians to slow me down—I pretty much have the place to myself.I did seeone older couple hiking when I was on my way back butthat was it. I stopped and talked to them—they were staying in a trailer at the same campground.

  My mind was free to wander. I thought about the Rasmussen case and how there were so many unanswered questions. I thought about Jennifer, which, for some reason, made me think about Toni. I hoped Toni had a good time with John Ogden on her date last night, but the thought of her having too much of a good time left me feeling a little strange. I’m not a jealous guy, and regarding Toni, I had no standing to be jealous in the first place. Still, the notion of Toni on a date with an old boyfriend left me feeling oddly uneasy.

  I wondered whom Doc was seeing. The poor guy—I hoped he’d be able to meet someone special. It wouldn’t be easy because Doc’s a complicated man—one of Kenny’s airhead girlfriends wouldn’t get the job done there, that’s for sure. Doc doesn’t say much so you can’t always tell, but there’s a lot going on inside. It would take a special woman for him. He was almost married to a wonderful Apache girl named Dohesta before the poor girl got run over by a drunken staffsergeant in a flatbed truck early one morning at Fort Lewis. Dot was truly one of a kind, and her death left Doc without a soul mate. He was crushed. Maybe now he was finally starting to emerge from the shadow of that tragedy, six years later. I hoped so, anyway. I wanted to see Doc happy like he used to be with Dot.

  After I got back to camp, I cleaned up, and then alternated be
tween fishing and playing my Martin guitar. I caught four rainbow trout—all of which I put back. Thing is, I like fishing, but I’m not real fond of trout. Anyway, these guys deserved to live more than I needed to eat them. So live long and prosper, fish.

  Later, I pulled out the Martin and worked on “The Jig Is Up.” I was trying to play it the way Laurence Juber did on his Altered Reality CD. I might not get there—Juber’s a wizard, my favorite finger-style guitar player. But I’d been working on the song for a monthandahalf, and I was making progress. I’d started playing guitar when I was a freshman in high school, but I really took it up in the army. At Fort Campbell—and sometimes even while deployed—we had a lot of downtime. My buddy PFC Bobby McNair from Philadelphia was a real finger-style virtuoso. He encouraged me to buy a decent guitar—my D-28 Marquis. Bobby taught me for three years. By the time I switched from infantry to CID, I was decent. He and I used to play a version of “Dueling Banjos” from Deliverance. It’s not that hard, but it never failed to amaze our buddies.

  After I was transferred to Fort Lewis, I kept at it. I saved up and bought a really nice Martin finger-style guitar—an OMC-44K. I continued taking lessons. It got to the point where I was pretty good, if I say so myself. I mean, I never played professionally, but who knows—maybe I could. I can definitely entertain myself. My guitars are great instruments—portable enough to easily take with me when I go camping, sounding full and rich enough to be very satisfying. All in all, Saturday was a great day.

  Sunday was almost as good, but by Sunday afternoon, clouds were rolling in from the southwest. I couldn’t tell when it was going to start raining (when, not if), so I decided to pack up before it started. By mid-afternoon, I was rolling. A few drops began to fall just as I pulled away from my camp spot.

  * * * *

  I made it back home and was unpacked by seven thirty. I was tired of driving and cleaning up and putting stuff away, so I threw a frozen pizza into the oven while I showered. I was finished by eight thirty and had just sat down to watch a movie when someone knocked on my door.

  I smiled, hopped up, and went to the door. I hadn’t expected Jennifer to get home for another day or so, but she was always welcome. I started to open the door, but decided I’d better check the peephole to be certain. Good thing I did.