by Woods, T E
“Call me lucky,” Robbie said. “Or impatient. You make the call.”
“With you I’d go with impatient every time. Remember the time you slipped out of your cast because your broken arm was itching? I’ll bet that little bit of impulsivity still sings to you every time it rains.” Mort flipped the file open and scanned the contents. “Well, the taxpayers just spent some money running down a short blind alley. I’m afraid we got nothing on Anna Galeta Salada.”
“Nothing at all?” Robbie asked. “How can that be?”
“Want me to read the entire one page file to you? Says here no records found in any database domestic or international. Several different spellings tried.” Mort let out a snort. “Here’s fun facts to know and tell. Says here ‘Galeta Salada’ is Spanish for ‘cracker’. Sounds like your little hooker has a sense of humor.”
“I’m thinking she isn’t a hooker at all. What about her passport? How’d she get into Costa Rica?” Robbie asked.
“No record of such a passport being issued legitimately. But you got enough money, Robbie, you can get anything.”
“And if my theory about her being a gun for hire is correct….”
“Then she’d have enough money to buy anything she wanted.” Mort closed the file. “You said you were running down leads. What else you got?”
“You tell me. You ever hear of somebody called ‘The Fixer’?”
Mort tossed Galeta Salada’s folder aside. “Isn’t that a television show? No, I’m thinking of something else.” He scanned his memory bank. “Can’t say as I have. Why?”
“While you were running background on Galeta Salada, I tried some different angles. The desk clerk at the hotel where Halloway died couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful this woman was. How Halloway was drawn to her right away. Said she was flawless except for a port wine stain on her neck.”
“I’m listening,” Mort said.
“I get to thinking that being a gorgeous hooker wouldn’t be a bad cover for a shooter, right?” Robbie sounded excited. “So I put out some feelers to see if anybody knows anything about drop-dead beautiful babes putting a hit on someone. I mean, gorgeous women draw attention, right?”
“Very clever. You’re a regular Woodward and Bernstein.” Mort reached for a pen and paper. “What did you learn?”
“Well, I didn’t get the names of anybody who’d been killed by a supermodel, but I did stumble onto something, could be nothing. Turns out a guy got nailed last summer for contracting a hit on his wife. Some low life scum owned car lots up and down the Florida coast. Gets tired of his wife, hooks up with his kids’ nanny, and decides a divorce would cost too much. Hears about someone called “The Fixer” from a friend of a friend who knew some guy with a cousin who used the services once. Says The Fixer makes problems go away permanently. So this guy makes contact. Sets a meet at an airport hotel. The Fixer turns him down but tells him an associate will meet him tomorrow. The guy gets burned when The Fixer calls the local cop shop and busts the guy. Cops send in a decoy and nab his fat ass.”
Mort chuckled. “So what’s this Fixer got to do with Halloway?”
“Here’s the thing.” Robbie sounded like a kid at Christmas. “I interviewed this douche today. Martin’s his name, and he says The Fixer is a woman! A drop-dead looker. Martin said he got a hard on just looking at her. What d’ya think, Dad? Think I found my beautiful hit man?”
Mort was impressed with his son’s work and told him so. “I’ll see what I can find on this end. Martin have a name for this woman?”
“Yeah,” Robbie said. “Said she called herself ‘Graham’.”
Mort wrote it down and tapped his pen against the paper. “Like the cracker.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mort slammed the door to the Subaru. He’d gotten the call halfway through lunch and could have handed it to anyone on the homicide squad, but this one was worth abandoning his pastramion-rye. He walked over to the body lying on the rain-slicked pavement, looked down, and fought the impulse to kick the dead man’s vacant stare off his face.
Angelo Satanell, Junior, aka Satan, had a gaping hole in his neck. Mort figured a .36 caliber at least.
He glanced over to a nondescript middle-aged man sitting on the curb, staring into nothing, oblivious to the freezing rain. Mort recognized him. Mark Hane. Father to Meaghan, the oh-so promising cellist left stuffed behind the dumpster after she overdosed on Satan’s heroin.
“Why isn’t he in cuffs?” Mort asked the uniform standing next to him.
The policeman shrugged. “He hasn’t given us any grief. Called it in himself. We found him sitting right there. Handed us his piece soon as we pulled up.” The officer spit into the street. “You know who this dirtbag is, right?” He leaned into Mort and whispered. “The way I see it, this gentleman did us a favor. I got half a mind to cut him loose and let this one go cold.”
Mort shot the officer an “If Only” look. He took another look at Junior, grabbed the forensic cop’s umbrella, and approached the man on the curb. He held it over the man’s drooped head.
“Mr. Hane?” Mort knelt to face him. “You may remember me. Mort Grant.”
Hane’s focus shifted. He looked at Mort and nodded. Rain dripped from his hair, nose, and chin. Mort recognized the powerless desperation in his eyes. He reached out his hand and lifted a fellow father to his feet.
“You’re going to have to come with me, sir.” Mort steered him to his car and opened the front passenger door. “Careful with your head, okay? What do you say you and I stop for some coffee before we head to the station?”
Hane stumbled into the car. He still hadn’t said a word.
L. Jackson Clark caught the newspaper Mort tossed him as he neared their booth. “You’re early. Making up for past sins?”
Mort took a sip of Guiness. “Needed to get out of the deluge. Started without you. Hope you don’t mind.”
Larry shook the rain off his parka, ran a hand over his gray hair, and pulled the waiting beer closer to him. “You get to the theme yet?”
Mort shook his head. “Two clues in is all.”
The men worked their puzzles in silence for several minutes. “You have anything for 28 across?” Larry asked. “’Another cold dish’?”
“I’ve got an r and an e as the first two letters,” Mort said. “Not enough spaces for ‘refrigerated’.”
A few more minutes of silence. “Ha! Catch 49 across. ‘Another unstrained quality’. There’s the theme. Get that one and you’ve got 28 across.”
“Mercy’s a quality that’s not strained,” Mort said. “At least that’s the rumor. But it’s eight spaces. Ends with ‘cy’.” Mort began writing. “Got it. ‘Clemency’. Old Will wants us looking for synonyms.” Mort pushed his reading glasses up on his nose. “That cold dish served is revenge, huh? So the synonym starting with an r and an e would be…” He filled in the spaces, leaned back, and took a long drink of beer. “Retribution.”
Larry set his paper aside. “You want me to beg or guess?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That deluge you wanted to get out of.”
“I’m that obvious?” Mort signaled Mauser to bring another round. “Call it a rough day. Remember that Satan character?”
“I do. Your impatience getting you again?”
Mort frowned. “That asshole’s off this city’s worry list.” Both men thanked the waitress as she replaced their empty glasses with fresh-filled mugs. “And in reward, the guy who made it possible will probably get ten years in prison.” He nodded to the puzzle. “Where’s the clemency or mercy in that?”
Larry asked for background and Mort filled him in on the details of Satan’s demise at the hands of a grieving father. “Tragic.” The big man shook his head. “I have no envy for your profession, Morton.”
Mort stared into his glass. “I play a vital part in the justice system. That’s what the recruiting posters say anyway.” He took a long drink. “Where’s the
justice for Meaghan?” He took another. “Give me ten minutes with the guy who took Allie and I’m not sure what I’d do.”
“You wouldn’t kill him.” Larry’s voice was calm and steady. “Justice is meted out through law, Mort. You’ve dedicated your career to overcoming wanton revenge. No matter how understandable.”
Mort leveled a sad gaze at the good professor. “Let’s talk about your career, Dr. Religious Studies. Don’t your books talk about an-eye-for-an-eye and all that?”
Larry exhaled long and slow. “That’s Bronze Age man’s code. Devastating for developed civilizations. I’m certain the transcendent power of the universe hopes we’ve evolved.”
Mort took another drink and knew he’d need a cab home. “Have we , Larry? Some dick-wad with a rich daddy kills somebody’s daughter and we’re supposed to stand on his side? Against a father who buried his little girl?”
“Justice is different from revenge, Mort. In the words of Gandhi, ‘An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind’.”
Mort looked at his friend. “Maybe there are worse things than blindness.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lydia knew that seven o’clock in the evening wasn’t the time for a double espresso but she brewed herself one anyway. An afternoon filled with appointments had given her the distraction she needed from worrying about Savannah, but also forced her to postpone the research she wanted to do on Cameron William’s jilted fiancé. If there was any hope of helping Savannah and freeing her own life from Private Number’s control she needed to find the person who ordered the hits on Bastian and Cameron. Since Mort Grant wasn’t sharing details on Buchner’s murder, the ex-fiancé was her only lead. By eight thirty she had lots of information, but little idea what to do with it.
Cameron said she met Bradley Wells the same way she’d met Fred Bastian. She catered an event for Wells’ mother’s eightieth birthday. Like Fred, Wells became infatuated with the lovely and talented chef. Cameron described his pursuit as relentless. She said she was hesitant at first. Not only because of their twenty-five-year age difference, but because she didn’t want anyone to think she’d slept her way to the top.
And Bradley Wells was the top. Lydia knew, like most everyone else in the United States, that he was a self-made billionaire with holdings in timber, real estate, and entertainment. One who used his infinite fortune to champion numerous progressive causes and candidates. She’d also read speculation over the years about a dark side to Wells’ climb to unimaginable wealth. Rumors of ties to organized crime. But he appeared impervious to innuendo and emerged unscathed from a senate investigation twelve years ago.
Lydia assessed the full-color photograph of Wells that beamed from his company’s website. Tanned and silvered haired, looking relaxed and confident in a white t-shirt under a navy blazer. Deep blue eyes. Runner’s body. He could easily pass for a man two decades younger than his actual fifty-five years. She could see why Cameron eventually succumbed to his courting.
Lydia wondered how Cameron dealt with the darker side her former fiancé. His Wikipedia biography said Bradley Wells was born in Tacoma. His mother tended bar during his childhood while his father served stints in various county lock-ups. At thirteen, Bradley took a job cleaning lockers at Tacoma Golf and Racket Club. He’d caught the eye of Santo Carrerra, owner of a chain of grocery stores and three “Gentlemen Clubs” on South Tacoma Way. Soon Bradley was Carrerra’s shadow. He was arrested at fifteen for dealing cocaine and ecstasy out of a Section Eight apartment complex Carrerra owned. He did six months in juvenile detention and was re-arrested a year later when police found forty thousand dollars worth of stolen cigarettes in the back of a van he was driving. Bradley remained in juvenile custody until his eighteenth birthday.
Wells’ official biography described “an epiphany” he experienced while a “student at a state run boarding school”. He wrote that he realized the path he was on led nowhere and decided to better himself, his family, and his community. The biography said that when Wells “graduated” he cut all ties to his “old friends” and enlisted in the Marines. Military records document him serving with commendation. He used the GI Bill at the University of Washington and graduated with a business degree. His first job was at a lumber brokerage firm. Twenty-five years later he owned 63% of the privately held timber land in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Wells Enterprises owned commercial high rises, shopping malls, and restaurants around the world and had recently purchased controlling interest in the largest motion picture studio in Hollywood.
Lydia scanned through dozens of photographs of Cameron and Bradley taken at exotic locations. More of the couple at the dedication of food banks and free clinics, many with major political figures standing next to them. Lydia looked at the picture of Cameron dancing with the President of the United States while Bradley waltzed with the First Lady and wondered what the billionaire thought when his fiancé came home and announced she was in love with a college professor.
She turned from her computer and re-read a sheet she’d printed earlier. Bradley would have been eighteen at the time the particular news item was filed. Just out of juvenile hall. His father was arrested for using a tire iron to put Bradley’s mother in intensive care. The story reported Bradley’s father was released after two days, his bail paid in cash. He was found dead on Pier 37 the next day. His throat sliced. A Coho salmon shoved in the gaping maw.
His killer was never found.
Lydia knew she couldn’t risk approaching Wells, even disguised. Whoever was behind the synthesized voice knew who she was. If Wells was the link to Private Number, she couldn’t afford to let him know she was closing in. She glanced at the clock and reached for the phone.
Her call was answered immediately. “ICU, Nurse Streckert.”
“This is Dr. Lydia Corriger. I’m checking on a patient, Savannah Samuels. Is she awake?”
“I can’t give you any information without a release, Doctor.” Lydia was impressed with Streckert’s adherence to protocol. “I can put you through to her bay, however.”
Childress answered on the third ring. He sounded exhausted.
“There’s been no change. I thought I saw her eyes flutter this afternoon. But the doctors say it’s just a reflex.” Lydia heard his voice catch. “I just want her to come back to me.”
“How are you holding up, Dr. Childress?”
“You’re kind to ask. You know, you’re the only one who’s stopped by or called to check on her. I appreciate that.”
Lydia assumed Savannah hadn’t told him about their childhood connection. “Do you mind if I ask you a rather personal question, Dr. Childress?”
He assured her he didn’t. Lydia hoped his fatigue and grief would keep him vulnerable enough to give her the information she needed.
“I assume you know Cameron Williams.”
Childress sounded confused. As though his mind was shifting gears. “You mean Bastian’s caterer?”
Lydia caught the judgment in his voice. “I was led to believe she was far more than his caterer.”
He sighed. “That whole business of Bastian proposing? Running off to Paris at the end of the semester?” His voice hardened. “I’m afraid I know all about it. I was Bastian’s right hand man, remember? Cameron meant nothing to Bastian. Oh, he acted as though he was in love, but trust me. She was a means to an end. Like everything and everyone who crossed Bastian’s path.”
Lydia thought of the devastated young woman she’d met that morning, lost in her grief. “I’m not following you.”
“Do you remember me telling you Bastian had one goal only? The enhancement of his reputation? Well, in academic circles reputations are built on how much money you bring to the university. Endowed chairs. Buildings. Research funds. It’s all about the money, Dr. Corriger. And Bastian thought he’d stumbled onto his own personal mint. Do you know who Cameron was engaged to marry before Bastian set his sights on her?”
“No, I don’t.” Lydia hoped her lie sounded convincing.
“Bradley Wells. The man God calls when He’s short on cash.”
“Tell me more.”
“Bastian learned about Cameron’s connection when his usual caterer cancelled a few days before a party. Dropped Wells’ name to assure him she’d secured a reputable replacement. Bastian came to me as soon as he got off the phone. He was as excited as a toddler with a new toy. He originally hoped Cameron would simply introduce him to her wealthy fiancé and that he’d be able to charm him out of a few hundred million for his research.” Childress’ voice was cold steel. “But once he met her Bastian changed his plan on the spot.”
“How so?”
“He seduced her. Bastian could be anything he needed to be at any given moment. His plan was to lure her away from Wells. Secure the ability to publicly humiliate one of the richest men in the world.”
“What would he gain by that? Wells had the money, not Cameron.” Lydia needed to keep him talking.
“Bastian had no plans of marrying the poor girl. Not for one minute. You can imagine Wells’ reaction. He confronted Fred the day after Cameron broke it off with him. Threatened to ruin him if he continued his romance with her. Fred suggested they work something out. He offered to end things with Cameron if Wells agreed to become his personal patron.”
“You can’t be serious.” She knew he wanted to tell more.
“Fred Bastian was always serious when it came to his reputation. Having access to the personal vault of Bradley Wells would propel him into a scholastic stratosphere unheard of since the Renaissance. He’d never have to beg for federal grants again. He’d be an academic god.”
“What did Wells say?”
“He was furious. Bastian let me listen to a few conversations on speaker phone. Wells said he’d see him in hell first.” Childress let out a small chuckle. “Turns out he did. Funny how things work out.”
“Yes, it is,” Lydia said. “If Wells rejected him, why did Bastian continue his charade with Cameron?”