Murder Made Legal: A Casey Alton Mystery

by Richard Wren

  Smitty remembered how Peterson had described Lanner. “He thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us.” He wondered if that could be used against him somehow and glanced to see the gunman’s reaction. There was none, just the same goofy looking smile plastered on his face.

  “Nope,” Lanner continued as if talking to himself. “We need to get out of here and take these assholes with us.” He raised his voice and spoke directly to the other gunman. “Then we get rid of them.”

  Lanner made a decision. “Willy,” he ordered. “Find me some duct tape, try the kitchen.”

  “Duct tape. Yes, sir,” Willy answered.

  Casey thought, Duct tape again? Seems to be a fetish with Lanner. An unbidden thought came to his mind. I wonder if he used the damn stuff on the girl he killed? He wished it had never been invented

  “Let’s see, who’s gonna be first.” Lanner made a production out of picking one of them. Suddenly he pointed at Smitty, “You, you’ll do. Get over here.” He pointed to a straight back chair. “Take off your jacket,” he ordered. Smitty was wearing a light cloth jacket over a short sleeved shirt. He did as ordered just as Willy returned carrying a large gray roll of duct tape.

  “Perfect,” Lanner observed. “Keep standing and cross your arms over your chest,” he ordered Smitty. “Tighter,” he ordered again.

  “Now,” he commanded Willy, “wrap the duct tape around his arms and chest several times.”

  Willy made a circle around Smitty twice, securely binding his forearms to his body with the duct tape so that he had no movement at all.

  Smitty almost gagged with the body odor that trailed Willy’s every move.

  “Put his jacket over his shoulders,”

  Willy draped the jacket over the shoulders and let the empty arms hang down loosely.

  Lanner nodded. “That’ll do.”

  “Now,” he announced, “Tell you what, Willy. Check the old guy’s pockets for his car keys. That’s gonna be our ticket outa here.”

  “My car’s right down the street,” Willy objected.

  “Just shut up and do it,” Lanner ordered. “Got it?” he asked after Willy finished rummaging around in Smitty’s pockets. Willy held up a set of keys.

  “Willy,” he said slowly. “Walk casually out to his car, unlock it, start it up, and check how full the tank is. Think you can do that?”

  Willy glared at Lanner and left.

  Lanner turned to Smitty.

  “You don’t think I know who you are, do you? Just an old man and his kid? Well, think again. He pointed to Smitty, “You’re Smitty, the Oakland Devil legend, and you’re his son-in-law,” he said, pointing at Casey. I know all about you. What I can’t understand is how come you’re chasing me. Hell, we might even have been in the same jail at the same time.” He paused a second, shrugged his shoulders, and snarled, “Whatever.”

  Suddenly his whole demeanor changed. His snarl became a smile, and his face lit up. He rubbed the barrel of his gun along his jaw just as he had at Shirl’s place. “Getting rid of you guys is gonna be fun. I’m thinkin’ maybe acid in a barrel. Nothin’ left after a few days. The perfect solution. What is it they say, you need a body to prove a murder?” He laughed almost maniacally and turned to Casey. “You, your wife’s an attorney, ain’t that right? You gotta have a body to prove murder? She’d agree wouldn’t she?”

  Casey’s blood turned to ice. Smitty stiffened against him. Oh Christ, he thought. Is he threatening Josie? I gotta do something.

  Lanner nonchalantly sidled over to the front window and peeked through the blinds keeping his gun trained on the twosome at all times.

  In a couple of minutes, the door was pushed open and Willy came in. “Kicked right over and almost a full tank, we’re all set.”

  Lanner wasn’t through threatening. “It’d be a lot easier getting outa here if there was only one of them. Maybe we should get rid of one of them here. Which one d’ya think, Willy?”

  “Maybe the old guy?”

  Lanner slowly walked back over to the couch while he appeared to ponder Willy’s answer.

  “Nah, I don’t think so. Too messy,” he winked.

  Smitty tried to think like Les must be thinking. He must have figured out there was something wrong. The problem was he couldn’t think of anything Les could do. One unarmed man aqainst two armed men, and one a known killer?”

  Lanner continued with more instructions to Willy. “When we’re ready, you’ll walk him out to the car as if he’d just thrown his jacket over his shoulders and put him in the back seat with seat belts on. Then you duct tape him to the seat belt. He won’t be goin’ nowhere.”

  Willy asked, “What if he yells or somethin’?”

  “He ain’t gonna yell because I’m a vicious motherfucker, and I’m inside with a gun on his son-in-law, right?” He continued. “We’ll do ‘em one by one.”

  Casey and Smitty exchanged looks. Their future was looking more and more bleek.

  Willy cautiously opened the front door, stepped out a few steps, raised his arms, yawned and returned to the house.

  “What the hell’re you doin?” Lanner asked.

  “Makin sure there’s no neighbors spyin on us.” Willy grinned.

  “Don’t matter.” Lanner said. “Throw his jacket over his shoulders kinda casual like. As far as any neighbors are concerned you’ll be walking out with your buddy to his car. Then you help him into the back seat. When you’re inside you use the duct tape and the seat belt like I said, got it?”

  Casey watched helplessly an Smitty was manhandled by the smaller Willy and forced to walk out the door. He thought, “God damn it, the bastard’s holding all the cards.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Willy violently shoving Smitty into the back seat and against the far side of the car. He tightened the seat belt as tight as he could then, using duct tape gagged him and further secured him to the seat belt.

  “Gotcha!” he said viciously, then backed out of the car and returned to the house for his next delivery.

  Lanner, asked, “How’d it go?”

  “Like clockwork, just like you planned. I shoved him in against the opposite door and taped him into the safety belt tighter’n hell. He ain’t gonna move.”

  “Perfect. Now for number two,” Lanner said. “Bring him over, still got lots of tape?”

  “Lots, but he ain’t wearing any jacket to cover it up,” Willy commented.

  “No problem,” Lanner said. “Bind him up. There’s plenty of jackets and sweaters in the bedroom closet.”

  Casey thought he had one chance and he had to take it. He let Willy lead him over to the chair preparatory to taping his arms, but just as he was parallel to Lanner, he swung his leg around and tripped Willy. At the same time, he grabbed Willy’s arm and tried to swing him around into Lanner. As Willy lurched off balance, Casey threw himself at Lanner trying to get to him while he was distracted and grab his gun. Lanner did a neat little sidestep and remained comfortably standing, gun in hand.

  “Entirely predictable.” Lanner tsked.

  In a moment, Willy was back on his feet and took out his anger by taping Casey’s arms much tighter than the previous ones.

  “Take him out,” Lanner instructed. “Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

  With nothing to lose, Casey confronted Lanner. He had a crazy thought. “Who’s on the bottom, you or Willy?”

  Lanner whirled around, “What the fuck’re you talking about?” he blustered.

  “It’s pretty obvious to me, the two of you living together?”

  “I ain’t no queer. I hate queers.”

  “Sure you are. It’s obvious to anyone. Not only that, you’re crazy to think you can get away with this. Too many people know we’re after you.

  With a huge effort, Lanner controlled his anger and answered him. “Of course I’ll get away with this. I always do. Unlike your gang, I plan well, and then I disappear. And like I said before, no bodies no case. Oh also, don’t worry about your wife
, maybe I’ll take her with me.” He grinned salaciously. “Go on, take the loser out,” he repeated to Willy.

  Lanner surveyed the job, then stood up and thrust his arm out pointing to the front door, “Away with the prisoner,” he theatrically exclaimed and broke into hysterical laughter.

  Crazy as a loon, Casey thought, but God damn smart too.

  With his arms tightly bound to his body, Casey could do nothing except drag his feet as Willy forced him to the car. He wildly looked up and down the street for help, but none appeared. He wildly thought, “Where the hell is Les? God damn it to hell Les, this nut’s going to kill us. Where the fuck are you? I’m not ready to die, Les. Jesus Christ Les, do something.“ He struggled to stay out of the car.

  Willy slammed him up against the rear fender, then pushed and shoved him into the back seat. Casey resisted by kicking as well as he could, but gradually was forced onto the back seat with his legs hanging out.

  Willy muttered, “fucking bag of cement. Shoulda killed both of ya’ inside.” He leaned down to lift Casey’s feet into the car. Casey kept his legs rigid to make the job as difficult as possible. Willy redoubled his efforts. Suddenly Casey’s butt slid across the seat bringing him up against Smitty. Willy lost his balance and fell forward into the car on top of Casey’s feet. As he tried to extricate himself he felt something brushing his hair. He suspected that somehow Casey had freed a hand and was trying some sort of a desperation move. He jerked his head up only to look directly into the two barrels of a cut off double-barrelled shotgun.

  “You move, you’re dead,” a gritty voice quietly said. Willy blanched, but didn’t move. Behind the gun, The door had been silently opened just enough to let the gun barrel in. The gunman was squatting so low that Willy quickly realized there was no way Lanner could see him. The gunman spoke to someone else. “Go!” he commanded.

  Willy was in a painful crouch, half in and half out of the car. He didn’t dare move.There was the sound of several feet lightly running across the lawn toward the house, then silence.

  “Don’t move!” the gunman whisperingly ordered. Willy hadn’t so much as twitched a finger, and he raised his eyebrows at the gunman until he realized the gunman was talking to the prisoners, not him.

  Just as he was wondering how much longer he could stay still and if the shotgun-wielding gunman would really shoot, Lanner shouted.

  “Willy, what the fuck’s keeping you?”

  “Is he coming out too?” the gunman whispered.

  “Soon’s I’m ready,” Willy nervously said.

  “Tell him everything’s okay, you’re just finishing up.”

  Willy, obviously eyeing the double barrels staring at him, did even better.

  “I’m ready, let’s go. The guy’s got big feet and I’m having trouble squeezing ‘em in.”

  Lanner had now thrown the door open and was shouting from the dark inside the house. A was biker pressed against the wall on either side of the door, each holding a sawn off shotgun.

  A laugh came from just inside the door as Lanner started out. “Break his legs if you need to; he ain’t gonna use them much anymore.

  Confidently with one hand on the door knob and the other holding a small travel bag, Lanner backed out the front door of his house. One of the bikers viciously brought the stock of his shotgun down on Lanner’s unprotected head.

  Lanner fell to the ground, blood streaming from the back of his head. “What the fuck?” burst from his mouth as he looked up at two double-barrelled shot guns pointing at him. The one that had hit him said, “Hi, I’m Dave, welcome to the real world. Now, stand up and back up.” Lanner complied as he was now on his knees, covered with two shotguns.

  Dave waved a free arm toward the street. A roar of motorcycle engines exploded around the corner and seconds later an army of nine motorcycles race toward the scene. Seconds later pocket knives were hard at work cutting the duct tape off the prisoners.

  Questions and remarks started flying in all directions. “What the hell happened to you guys?” Dave asked.

  At the same time Smitty was asking “What took you guys so long,” of the motorcycle gang.

  And Casey was asking Les, “What happened to you?” It was bedlam with everyone talking over everyone else.

  Suddenly Smitty took charge. “Enough,” he shouted while still sitting in the car getting the tape stripped off. “Les,” he said into the ensuing quiet, “What’s going on outside, are the neighbors all upset?”

  “Not hardly,” Les responded. “It’s strange. Only one elderly couple came out. Nobody peeking from behind curtains, nothing.”

  “Okay,” Smitty replied. “Have one of the guys talk to them. Tell them it’s a surprise birthday party and apologize for the noise.”

  Les reached over to a biker sitting on his bike next to him and started giving him instructions.

  “Not him,” Smitty interrupted. “Pick some guy without a long scraggly beard for Christ’s sake. We don’t wanna scare the people to death.”

  The guy laughed, made a face and said BOO! to Smitty.

  Smitty stared at Willy for a second, then contemplated Lanner who was securely tied to a kitchen type chair on the front porch. He turned to Casey, “You okay?”

  “Yeah, barely. A little too close for comfort I think. Did you hear what he said about Josie?”

  “Only that he knew she was an attorney, there’s more?”

  “Yeah. After they dragged you out, he told me that after we were killed he might take her to Mexico with him. The son of a bitch knew all about her.”

  Smitty was silent while they finished cutting and stripping the tape. He arrived at a decision.

  “Let’s forget Richmond. We stay right here for now. Take both of them back inside the house and have the guy’s walk their bikes into the driveway, okay?” He directed the question to Casey.

  “Sure,” Casey agreed. He was taking much longer to strip the tape off as Willy had not only taped him tighter he’d put much more tape on him than any of the others. Then he added. “We better let Josie know we’re okay.”

  “Right,” Smitty acknowledged then added, “But don’t let her know where we are. I think we can do better with these guys if the girls aren’t around.”

  It only took a moment’s thought for Casey to agree with him. Whole heartedly.

  The whole group was waiting expectantly for Smitty’s leadership as he stiffly climbed out of the car. He stood up, stretched, and looked around at the group, “Helluva job, guys,” was all he said, but they all got the message. It had been a close call.

  He lightly cuffed Les on his arm and whispered, “Thanks, buddy,” then turned to the assorted bikers and continued the farce for the neighbors. “Okay guys, inside for the party.”

  The guys trooped in; Willy walked in tightly escorted by two of the bikers, and Lanner was dragged in from the porch.

  Smitty, very aware of the feelings involved, suggested that Casey supervise the binding of Lanner and Willy.

  “Where’s the roll of tape?” Casey immediately queried. Nothing better or stronger at immobilizing someone than good old duct tape, he reflected ruefully.

  Smitty grabbed his arm and led him outside. “How’re we gonna handle this?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know. The guy’s definitely psycho. Hell, he even danced a little jig before he took me out.”

  “I know. I think he’s one of those guys that doesn’t have a conscience, I can’t think of the name?”

  “Yeah, a sociopath. Casey supplied.

  “Whatever,” Smitty agreed. “But the problem is I don’t know how you wheedle information out of a guy like that. You think he’d crack under pressure?”

  Casey reflected for a minute. “No way. He’d probably enjoy it. But he’s also a nut, a genuine nutcase. And he thinks he’s a criminal genius. Maybe we can use that?”

  Smitty’s face lit up. “So he’s probably thinking we’re gonna use the same tactics he used on us, but instead we butter him up and g
et him talking?”

  “We’d have to pretty subtle about it. Among other things, he’s smart.”

  Smitty grinned. “You have no idea how subtle I can be.” He cracked his knuckles.

  Casey groaned.

  Smitty continued enjoying baiting Casey. “I can be subtler than subtle,” he chortled.

  CHAPTER 43

  “Seriously Dad.” Casey never called his father-in-law dad unless he was trying to be serious. “Seriously Dad, I want to get this guy so bad I can taste it, but we need the info he has for Gus, remember? We’re going to have to trick him into telling us what we want without him ever knowing what it is we’re after. It’s going to be tricky, and we’re really going to have to be really subtle, right?”

  Smitty put on a serious face. “You’re right, subtle it is. You take the lead, okay?”

  Smitty walked over to the bikers and with his back to the trussed up pair, spoke softly to the gang. “You guys just stay quiet. We think we got a way to get the info we want outa these guys, but we don’t need any remarks from the peanut gallery and that’s you guys. Get it?”

  Casey walked over to the two and stood quietly in front of them. After a moment, he addressed Lanner.

  “I thought you said you were the greatest planner in the world. Looks like you’re just another lousy egomaniacal crook. You sure laid an egg with this one didn’t you?”

  Lanner didn’t bat an eye.

  “Didn’t see it coming, did you? So wrapped up in yourself you forgot to check the outside? What an idiot.”

  Lanner raised his head and glared at Casey, but still didn’t speak.

  “Tried to show off for your buddy? What d’ya think he thinks about you now since you screwed up so much?”

  Lanner glanced at Willy. Willy looked away. Lanner spoke, “I ain’t talkin.”

  “Don’t expect you to. We got you pegged as a psychopath, probably end up in a psycho ward if you’re not executed.”

  Lanner’s head jerked up. “I ain’t no psycho,” he declared vehemently.

  “Sure you are. You get high on taking advantage of weaker people and how else explain three murders, one of them a defenseless old lady?”