Final Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series)

by Mark de Castrique

  “At my cabin,” I said.

  “Not in an evidence room?”

  “No. I’m the officer in charge. I signed out for everything in the safe so I could catalogue the evidence at home. Frankly, we didn’t know who to trust. There was a leak and we were afraid it was in our department.”

  Greene smiled. “There was a leak in your department and you were it. Nice of you to keep those emails going to Florida. How do you think I knew you hadn’t gotten in the safe yet? I don’t know what that fool Larson left in there, but I can’t take a chance that it leads back to me or the people I work for.”

  Of course. The leak wasn’t in Florida like we thought. Neither Spring nor anyone else down there was involved. Greene or his accomplice had simply installed another password when they set up the computer in Tommy Lee’s room, a computer I’d asked for. Was that what Fletcher had been doing? Erasing any trace of another way into our files?

  “How far’s your cabin?” he asked.

  “Twenty-five or thirty minutes. It’s on the back side of Bear Ridge.”

  Greene frowned. “I don’t know where that is, but you’d better not be leading me on a wild goose chase.”

  “Ask your friend on the other end of the phone. He’ll tell you it’s the truth.”

  “Keep your hands where I can see them.” Greene flipped open his phone and punched re-dial. “Clayton says the papers are at his cabin on Bear Ridge twenty-five to thirty minutes away. Does that sound right?” Greene listened a few moments. “Then we’re headed there. I’ll keep calling every five minutes.” He stared at me and barked his orders into the phone. “Stay close to them. If Clayton is stupid enough to try anything and you don’t hear from me, tie up the loose ends and get out.”

  I didn’t need a glossary to understand what he meant.

  We left by the back door. Greene held the gun inside his suit coat and walked a few yards behind me. “My car’s around the corner from the alley. A black Cadillac STS. Get in the passenger side. But first toss your cell phone in that dumpster. You weren’t planning on calling anybody, were you?”

  Greene was smart. He wasn’t making any mistakes. I threw my phone in the dumpster.

  When we were about twenty feet away from his vehicle, he pushed his remote key. Headlights flashed twice and the locks popped up.

  “Back seat?” I asked.

  “So you can strangle me with your shoe lace? I don’t think so. Sit in the front and buckle up. Then tuck your arms under the shoulder strap.”

  Greene waited until I’d secured my seatbelt before he slid behind the wheel. He closed his door, transferred the pistol to his left hand, and rested it in his lap with the barrel pointed at my stomach. “Which way?”

  I gave him directions out of town. The route wasn’t the most direct one, but he didn’t know that. I had to stop him before we reached my cabin and he discovered I’d been lying. My only chance lay in overpowering him when he was most vulnerable, navigating the twisting road that scaled Bear Ridge. I played the path of the old two-lane blacktop in my mind, searching for the best place to make my move. We’d need an impact hard enough to deploy the airbags, but not so violent that I was pinned in the car or knocked unconscious. Some of the hairpins bordered drops nearly five hundred feet deep. The road crossed several streams that wound down the mountain. Those drops weren’t as severe and the plunge into a shallow stream not as dangerous as tumbling end over end into the trunk of an ancient pine.

  As we left the town limits, the black starry sky swallowed us. Memory and the halogen throw of the Cadillac’s headlights were all I had to guide me.

  “Are you the brains behind this operation?” I asked.

  “Curiosity killed the cat. Remember?”

  I’d had one too many cats this week already. “Just wondering. The setup seems well thought out till you get to a two-bit hustler like Artie Lincoln.”

  In the soft glow of the illumined dash, I could see Greene’s face tighten.

  “Artie Lincoln was a damn fool. None of that was my idea. We were making good money off the Medicare scams, but the OxyContin was too tempting. Too much profit for too many greedy people.”

  Greene stopped talking and hit his phone’s re-dial button as the road began the sharp ascent toward my cabin. “We’re still on the road. What’s happening there?” Again he was silent as he listened. “You mean to tell me those country bumpkins haven’t figured out the bomb threat is a hoax? That just makes it easier for you to do what you have to do if Clayton decides to become a hero.” He hung up.

  “It’s not too late to work out a deal,” I said. “I can hook you up with an FBI agent who will probably give you immunity if there’s no evidence you killed anyone.”

  “And wind up with a new name in Arizona?” He laughed derisively. “I may as well take a lesson from Larson and shoot myself. No, I’m out of here. Out of the country. But somebody else screwed up, so Joel cleans up. Cuts the losses, contains the investigation.”

  The bitterness in Greene’s voice meant he was telling the truth. I had no doubt I was part of that containment. Whether he found what he wanted at my cabin or not, he meant to kill me. I thought about the five minutes between calls to his accomplice. Maybe Greene had made a mistake after all. He should have stayed on the phone the entire time to insure I wouldn’t do anything. Maybe he was worried about the call being tracked or his cell battery dying. Maybe the other person couldn’t stay tied to the phone without raising suspicions. Whatever, I had five minutes to overpower Greene, call the hospital, and get someone to my father’s room. Five seconds had meant no chance for my father, but five minutes was a chance I was willing to take. More importantly, a chance my father would want me to take. Dad would want me fighting to the end. He had been fighting his own battle for survival for years, and now he was lying in a hospital fighting for every breath. He would want me to do the same.

  A few minutes later, the road took a dip to a narrow bridge over the first stream. I tensed as Greene opened his phone again. My timing would need to be perfect. Would he fire the gun or use both hands to fight me for the steering wheel? As much as I feared the pistol, my first concern was the phone. I had to get it away from him.

  Greene slowed to forty-five as the slope bottomed out at the narrow two-lane bridge. “Clayton’s been a good boy. Everything’s going to work out.” He hung up without waiting for a reply.

  I saw the gap between the trees and the bridge widen. The headlights disappeared in the blackness. I snapped my arms from under the shoulder belt and clamped both hands on top of the steering wheel. I yanked hard to the right. The car lurched, lifting the right tires off the road.

  Greene fought to regain control and for a second I thought we would slam into the facing of the bridge guardrail. Then we were airborne over the bank. Greene screamed as rocks and churning whitewater rushed toward us. I grabbed his phone and pulled so hard the plastic belt clip broke.

  The dashboard exploded as the airbags were deployed. I had turned in the seat and the impact hit my shoulder like a two-by-four swung by Babe Ruth. The car rolled onto its left side, cracking the windows. Greene fell against his door, stunned by the blow from the airbag.

  I twisted my legs from under the dash and pulled the seatbelt release. My body dropped on Greene and I stomped his arm with both feet, hoping to dislodge the gun if he’d managed to hold on to it. Cold water soaked through my shoes. The stream surged through the broken glass.

  Greene was screaming, reaching with both hands to pull himself out of the rising water.

  I pushed up my door and stood up like a sailor emerging from a submarine. The interior lights were still working and I looked down to see Greene trapped behind the wheel and tangled in the deflated airbag. His face paled with panic.

  “Help me.” He reached a hand toward me.

  The car lay on its side across the stream and had become a dam. Water flowing in had no way out. The pressure of the current forced the level higher. Greene could drown in
water that only came up to my knees. At that moment I didn’t care if he did. I called Tommy Lee’s number, praying that the bomb scare at the hospital hadn’t separated him from his cell phone. Patsy answered after the first ring.

  “Put Tommy Lee on quick,” I said.

  “He’s right here.”

  Immediately Tommy Lee’s gravelly voice came on the line. “Are you all right? I just tried to call you. This bomb threat and fire have got to be a setup. They’re coming for the safe.”

  “They already have. It’s Joel Greene. I’ve got him but he has an accomplice at the hospital who’s going to kill my father. I don’t know who it is, but Greene’s going to tell me. Get to my father’s room now!”

  Tommy Lee’s breath came in gasps. “I’m on my way.”

  I looked down at Greene. “Who did you talk to? Who’s after my father?”

  “Help me and I’ll tell you.”

  I pushed Greene’s head beneath the water with the heel of my shoe. After a few seconds, he came up sputtering for air.

  “Who’s going to kill my father?” I screamed.

  Above the rush of the water, a bang sounded from the trunk. I hopped out of the car, worried it was toppling over. I sloshed through the stream and found the left rear wedged on a rock. The bang came again. Someone was inside.

  I pounded on the trunk and what sounded like a kick came in response.

  “I have to get the key,” I shouted.

  “Clayton! Clayton!” Greene’s shrill cries echoed through the hollow.

  I wriggled back inside the passenger door, dodged Greene’s frantic grasps, and wrenched the keys free of the ignition.

  “Get me out. I’ll tell you. I swear!” The water swirled around the back of Greene’s head.

  “No deal. You tell me first.”

  I stumbled over the slippery rocks and located the lock by the red glow of the taillights. The trunk lid swung to the left until it hit a boulder. The open space was no more than nine inches wide. A head fell through. Fletcher Shaw turned his face to me. His eyes shone bright with fear. Gray duct tape covered his mouth. I reached in and grabbed his shoulders. As carefully as I could, I twisted him through the gap and pulled him free.

  Duct tape bound his hands and feet. Dried blood caked the back of his head. I dragged him to the bank where the light from the car was barely strong enough to see him. He whimpered as I peeled the tape from his mouth.

  “I’ll get your hands,” I said.

  “Clayton! What do you want? What do you want to know?”

  I ignored Greene’s cries and felt for the edge of the tape. Greene had looped Fletcher’s wrists at least ten times, but once I got it started, the tape quickly came off.

  Fletcher flexed his fingers.

  “Can you do your feet?” I asked.

  “Yes.” His voice sounded thick and husky.

  I left him picking at the tape around his ankles and waded to the Cadillac. Greene strained against the belt, trying to keep his head above water.

  “The game’s changed, Greene. I don’t care whether you live or die.” I pulled his phone from my pocket. “I’m betting Tommy Lee got to my father in time. All I want to know is who’s helping you at the hospital?”

  As if on cue, Greene’s phone rang. I was afraid to answer. I’d talked big just a few seconds before, but what if this was the accomplice calling to say the job had been done. Had I miscalculated the time?

  Greene stared at the phone like it was a life raft. “You still need me, Clayton. Go ahead, answer it.”

  After the fifth ring, I flipped it open. “Yeah,” I said, trying to do my best impersonation of Greene.

  “This is OnStar,” a woman said. “We’ve received notification of an airbag deployment on a vehicle belonging to this cell phone owner. Has there been an accident?”

  “Has there ever.”

  “Does anyone require medical attention?” Her voice grew even more concerned.

  “Yes. Do you have our location?”

  “We have a GPS fix.”

  “Then send an ambulance and the police as soon as possible.” I waited till she clicked off and kept my eyes on Greene. “And better send a hearse.” I flipped the phone closed.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “Whittier,” Greene screamed. “Pamela Whittier.”

  I dialed Tommy Lee without giving Greene a second look.

  “Your father’s all right,” Tommy Lee said before I could speak. “Susan’s been with him for almost an hour, and no one else has been here.”

  Relief swept over me. I leaned against the car, the whitewater swirling around my knees. “Thank God.”

  “Is Greene talking yet?”

  I struggled to keep from crying.

  “Can you hear me, Barry? Who’s the accomplice?”

  Finally I forced the words out. “He says Pamela Whittier.”

  “Whittier? Are you sure he’s not jerking us around?”

  “Greene’s not in a position to jerk us around.”

  “Pamela was here,” I heard Susan tell Tommy Lee. “A little after the bomb threat came in. She said she was checking to see if everything was all right.”

  Tommy Lee came back on the phone. “Susan says—”

  “I heard. Any idea where she is now?”

  Before Tommy Lee could answer, I heard metal scrape over rocks as the Cadillac tilted farther on its side.

  “Clayton. Help me!” Greene’s words ended with a strangled cough.

  “I’m at the bridge over Little Buck Creek on Bear Ridge. Find Whittier.” I jammed Greene’s phone in my pocket.

  The weight of the trapped water began to wedge the car deeper. I pulled myself up to the passenger window. Greene pushed against the steering wheel trying to keep his head out of the cold stream. He struggled to free himself, but kept falling back into the water.

  “My leg’s pinned against the door,” he cried.

  I reached down and locked my hand around his wrists. He dug his fingers so deep into my skin that pain shot up my arm. I braced myself against the door jamb and tugged as hard as I could. Greene’s leg bent against the bottom of the steering wheel and he screamed.

  I released his wrist and jerked my arm free. “Fletcher. Can you help me?”

  “Yes.” He splashed through the water, kicking spray that glistened like red drops of blood in the glow of the taillights.

  The pit of my stomach churned. Joel Greene might drown right in front of me. I turned to Fletcher. “The stream’s flowing in through holes in the side windows. The hydraulic pressure’s raising the level higher.” Hydraulic. The wrecked car was creating an artificial hydraulic. The trapped water couldn’t flow back against the stronger current, but Greene couldn’t escape by diving deeper.

  “Come on.” I stumbled over the slippery rocks, using my hands to steady myself until I reached the front windshield. Through the glass, I could see the water tumbling like a giant washing machine. “Find a rock. We’ve got to smash through as low as we can so the water has a way out.”

  We felt along the bottom of the stream. A small rock wouldn’t have enough mass and a large boulder would be too heavy to lift.

  I gripped my hands around a stone the size of a cinderblock and pried it free. “This should work.”

  Fletcher helped me lug the rock closer to the car.

  “We should throw it together,” he said. “Safety glass is tough.”

  “Aim for the lower corner right above the stream. On the count of three.”

  We stood side by side, the heavy rock swinging between us. With a groan I put all my strength into hurling it against the glass. The windshield shattered, spitting the stone back out as the trapped water rushed for an exit. I saw a flash of metal and snagged my pistol as the torrent flushed it free. I waded to the side of the car and climbed up to the passenger door. As I bent down to drag Greene out, he waved me back.

  “Thanks, Clayton. I can wriggle up out of this mess now. I owe you one.”

  The
tone in his voice spooked me. I jerked back as Greene snapped a small caliber pistol clear of the frothy water. A bullet whizzed past my ear, buzzing like an angry hornet. Sheer reflex took over and I fired two rounds as I fell backwards into the current.

  “Barry!” I heard Fletcher scrambling after me.

  “Stay down!”

  I bumped over rocks a few yards before hitting a fallen log. Without taking my eyes off the upturned passenger door, I crawled back toward the front of the Cadillac, careful to stay out of the spill light. A pink tinge colored the water flowing out of the smashed window. Greene’s bloody head bobbed against the windshield. He no longer needed rescuing.

  I crawled over to Fletcher.

  He was shaking. “He was going to kill you. After we saved his life, he was going to kill you.”

  I gave Greene’s body one last look. “That’s the way people like Greene repay kindness.”

  We found a mossy patch on the bank and collapsed on the ground. Fletcher couldn’t stop shivering and I was afraid he was going into shock. No telling what he’d been through before I found him. I needed to get his mind off what had just happened until the ambulance arrived.

  “How’d you wind up in Greene’s trunk?”

  “I got an attack of the stupids,” Fletcher said in a shaky voice. “I knew you were right that someone was leaking information and I knew it wasn’t me. I thought about how you and Tommy Lee always discussed the case in his hospital room and that the computer was the link for all the emails. I didn’t know the password, but I know enough about computers to see if the data was being accessed by someone else. Even though you were on the hospital network, the shielded files shouldn’t allow another terminal to read them. I saw multiple interactions from a different IP address occurring with your protected zone.”

  “IP address?” I’d heard the term but wasn’t sure what it meant.

  “Internet Protocol address. Every computer connected to the internet has one. I thought it was probably a computer in Florida since that seemed to be the link to Artie Lincoln.”

  “Nothing sounds stupid so far,” I said. “I wish you’d told me your suspicions.”