Paying the Piper

by Simon Wood

  “Fleetwood?” Sheils asked.

  Brannon shook his head. “Could be in the trunk.”

  Possible, but unlikely, Sheils decided.

  “Look at this.” Brannon showed Sheils skid marks coming from the Buick’s right. “It looks like a truck T-boned him. A big one.”

  Sheils recognized the tactic. The kidnapper has the ransom courier jump through hoop after hoop. The courier becomes comfortable with the procedure. Then the kidnapper turns everything on its head with a smash-and-grab. The courier is left immobilized while the kidnapper makes off with the ransom. That tactic had served many kidnappers well. The Piper had added a new wrinkle. Usually the kidnapper took the ransom and left the courier.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Brannon said. “Why take Fleetwood and the money?”

  “To make him squirm.”

  “Do you think he’s offered to swap places with his kid?”

  “It’s possible. Tell the fire chief to put this out. I don’t think we’re going to learn anything here.”

  They stood back to let the firefighters do their job. Sheils’s driver came over with a radio unit in his hand.

  “They’ve picked up a signal.”

  Sheils listened to the tech back at the resident agency explain that they’d picked up a faint stationary signal from one of the money band trackers only three miles from the wreck. Finally, a break.

  Sheils instructed the deputies to secure the car after the fire department had put out the fire. He and Brannon raced over to the location of the signal. On the way, he requested that the Lane County sheriffs set up a perimeter around the signal to prevent anyone from getting in or out of the area.

  Sheils set up a staging area two hundred yards from the signal’s coordinates. It came from a parking lot belonging to an abandoned burger joint, long out of business. As soon as he saw the building, he got a sinking feeling.

  “Maintain positions. I’m going in,” Sheils told Brannon.

  He approached with a flashlight in one hand and his 9mm drawn. He wasn’t afraid. He knew what he’d find, but he could feel his pulse racing at his temple. Even in the darkness, he spotted the immobile shape lying in the parking lot. He recognized it immediately and jogged over to it. He raised his weapon as a precaution and slowed his pace when he got close. He shone the flashlight on it.

  It lit up the duffel, minus two million dollars.

  “All clear,” he said into his radio.

  The task force closed in. Sheils ordered an agent to book the duffel into evidence and have it examined. He doubted they’d get any usable forensics from it, but they had to try.

  “He might have the money, but he can’t spend it,” Brannon said. “I’ve released the serial numbers. Banks, stores—they’re all expecting them.”

  Brannon’s cell rang a couple of seconds before Sheils’s did.

  Sheils unclipped the phone. As he lifted it to his ear, he watched Brannon’s expression change. It froze, then cracked as if someone had dropped a heavy weight on it.

  “Agent Sheils,” Sheils said.

  “Long time no hear, Agent Sheils,” the Piper’s disguised voice said.

  “How did you get this number?” Sheils’s question came out tight and clipped.

  “Mrs. Fleetwood gave it to me,” the Piper replied. “She’s a very scared lady. She wanted details, but I spared her. Some things should be kept from the innocents.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “I’m sure you have someone frantically telling you to expect a call. I thought I’d beat them to the punch.”

  Brannon hung up and hushed the agents around them. He motioned to a local agent to put a trace on Sheils’s phone.

  “Where’s Scott Fleetwood?”

  “He’s with me.”

  “Is he unharmed?”

  “For now, yes.”

  “Sammy Fleetwood?”

  “He’s good too.”

  “Are they together?”

  “Agent Sheils, stop wasting my time. Go home. When I’ve decided what to do with Scott, I’ll call you.”

  Before Sheils could get his next question out, the Piper ended the call, severing any link to Sammy and Scott.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Scott awoke on his back in the middle of a field. It was still night. He sat up and a note tumbled from his chest. He opened the twice-folded sheet of paper. Written in black Sharpie and smudged by dew was a simple message.

  FIND HIM

  On the other side of the paper was a MapQuest printout of the area with a circle around Mike Redfern’s address. He pocketed the map and trudged across the field. When he reached the road, a sign welcomed him to Lebanon.

  It took half an hour to find Redfern’s tiny ranch house on a dead-end street. Mildew streaked the ancient wood siding. The place looked so damp that it needed wringing out. Unkempt brambles and vegetation provided an unwelcome barrier. A worn gravel path marked out a driveway.

  I’m here, he thought. Now what? He supposed he should have developed some sort of plan to apprehend Redfern, but he was a reporter, not a cop. He was also worn out and emotionally drained, which wasn’t helping.

  At first glance, Redfern didn’t look to be at home. Scott tried the doorbell, but the lack of movement from inside the house confirmed his suspicion. He peered through the living room window and saw no one.

  He considered breaking into the house. He’d lie in wait for Redfern, armed with something sharp from the kitchen. Suddenly, he felt the heat of an unwanted stare burning into his back. He turned to find an elderly man standing on the sidewalk.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” the old man said.

  “That’s okay.” Scott jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Do you know when Ray comes home? I’m supposed to be hooking up with him, but I think I missed him.”

  “You’re not a close friend, are you?”

  Scott held in his shock. “What makes you say that?”

  “If you were close, you’d know he spends his evenings at Ed’s Bar. Alone.”

  Scott nodded with sad understanding while he pieced together a cover story. “I was afraid of that. His family sent me. I’m a counselor. They’re afraid his drinking is a problem again.” He kept his distance. He didn’t want the old man getting a good look at his face. “I’ll see if I can catch him there, then. Thanks for your help.”

  The old man stood his ground, then asked, “Do you need directions?”

  “In my line of business, you know where all the bars are.”

  The old man lingered on the sidewalk. To not move meant drawing attention. Scott couldn’t put it off any longer and walked toward him.

  Just as he got within good identification distance, Scott glanced skyward. “Looks like a rainy night.”

  The old man looked up to examine the sky and Scott breezed past. It was a cheap trick, but it worked.

  Scott found a pay phone at a corner gas station and looked up Ed’s address in the phone book. When he arrived, the place looked how he’d imagined—barfly territory, neon signs for Budweiser and Miller glowing in the window. The interior wasn’t much better. It relied on a few forty-watt bulbs and two wall-mounted TVs for lighting. But the place was packed, and conversation drowned out the TVs.

  Redfern wasn’t at the bar, so Scott searched the booths, recalling how Redfern had looked when Sheils arrested him. Scott pictured that man, not the man eroded by prison. He would have missed him if he hadn’t recognized the guilt in Redfern’s face. It was the same guilt that plagued Scott.

  Redfern looked nearer to fifty than forty, and he was twenty pounds lighter than Scott remembered. Age lines sliced his face more deeply than they should have. A ragged scar ran under his chin, disappearing behind his ear.

  When Redfern looked up at Scott from his beer, he didn’t appear to recognize him. That made things easier for Scott, and he slid onto the bench seat opposite him.

  “I don’t like company,” Redfern said.

  Redfern
had been a mild-mannered claims adjuster for an insurance company before his arrest. Now harshness edged his words. Scott had expected Redfern to be someone he could overcome easily, not a prison-hardened ex-con. He felt his confidence wane.

  “Do you remember me, Mike?”

  “Yeah. I figured someone would come looking, eventually. Look, get something from the bar. We’re drawing attention.”

  Scott bought two beers and put one in front of Redfern.

  “How do you sleep?” Redfern asked.

  Scott didn’t have time for this, but decided to play along. Redfern wouldn’t simply go with him to the Piper just because Scott said so, but he might if he got drunk enough.

  “Fine. I sleep fine.”

  “That’s a whole lot better than me. You see this?” Redfern jerked his chin up and pointed to the scar. “Happened two weeks after I went to prison. An old door hinge sharpened into a razor. Anything can become a weapon if you have the imagination.”

  “Imagination is what put you there. Why’d you do it? You had to know you’d get caught.”

  Scott’s remarks dulled Redfern’s sharp edges. “You probably think I’m pathetic. Don’t deny it. That’s how I see myself, looking back. Your dreams are all you have when you don’t have anything. They help you get up in the morning, go to the day job, pay your taxes, and generally put up with crap, because those dreams could come true.”

  “And your dream was to be the Piper?”

  “No. Not really. I wanted to be powerful. The Piper was powerful. His name meant something.”

  “But you knew things about the Piper that no one else did.”

  “Don’t you think I researched him? To pretend to be him, I had to understand him. I carried out my own investigation. I saw the connections and made some good assumptions.”

  Redfern blew Scott away. This guy, this nobody, with no police training, had pieced things together from secondhand accounts. He didn’t know whether to be in awe or disgusted.

  “Did you keep any of your findings?”

  Redfern didn’t answer for a minute. “The FBI thought they got it all, but I kept copies.”

  “Could I see them?”

  Redfern shrugged. “Everything’s back at the house.”

  “Show me.”

  Scott followed Redfern out to an aged Ford Escort. The guy was over the limit, but Scott wasn’t about to argue with him. Redfern drove them back to his small home. The house was cold and smelled musty.

  “I’ve got the stuff in my study,” Redfern said and disappeared into one of the bedrooms.

  Scott went into the living room. Redfern owned the bare minimum: a chair, a table, a TV, and a couple of picture frames that sat on the mantel above the fireplace. Scott picked them up. One was a studio shot of a smiling woman who looked to be in her early thirties. The other photo pictured a vacation shot of the same woman with a man and a couple of kids around Sammy and Peter’s age.

  “My sister and her family,” Redfern said, returning to the room carrying two bulging cardboard file boxes. He set the boxes down on the ground.

  Scott set the picture frames back on the mantel. “Do you see them much?”

  “What do you think?”

  Scott let the subject drop. He opened up one of the file boxes and yanked a fistful of file folders free.

  Redfern said something about making coffee and padded into the kitchen while Scott sifted through the files. A lot of what Redfern had collected was what Scott had expected—newspaper clippings, online news reports, and even videotaped recordings from 60 Minutes, Dateline, and just about every other news magazine show on TV. Redfern went the extra mile with screen dumps from various Internet conspiracy sites. There was so much crap that Scott almost gave up. Then it got interesting.

  One file revealed a transcript of telephone calls the Piper had made to the kidnap families, all on FBI letterheads. Redfern had annotated the transcripts and highlighted repetitious words said by the Piper. Essentially, he’d created his own CliffsNotes on the kidnapper. No wonder everyone had bought his act.

  “How did you get these transcripts?”

  “When you tell people you’re from the FBI, they tend to believe you,” Redfern said proudly.

  Scott set about putting the jumble of information into some semblance of order. He separated out the Internet bullshit. Any official documents—and there were a lot—he kept separated from the media stories. These were all of note, but the stuff Scott really wanted to get at was Redfern’s own notes and the journals he’d put together. He’d managed to accurately mimic the Piper from reading between the lines.

  “So,” Redfern called from the kitchen, “why did you track me down? You never did say.”

  Scott had expected the question. “You seemed to know a lot about the Piper, so I thought you might be able to help me get something on him.”

  Redfern returned to the living room carrying a mug of coffee in each hand with steam unfurling from them. “Funny that you should come to me and not to the cops when the Piper has your kid.”

  “Yeah, well, if I can give the Feds any info, it’ll help them stop him.”

  Redfern nodded. “So it was lucky you had my address at hand.”

  Scott had created a facade from spun glass. It was pretty to look at, but fragile as hell, flawed by beginner’s errors. It stayed intact as long as no one touched it. Now it was crashing down. He anticipated Redfern’s move a fraction of a second before it happened.

  Scott dropped the papers and lurched out of the way of the hot coffee Redfern hurled at him. The scalding liquid splashed across one leg. Ignoring the searing heat, he scrambled across the couch.

  Redfern jerked out a steak knife from the back of his pants and threw himself at Scott. He landed on Scott’s back, and both men bounced off the couch and crashed into the coffee table, upending it and all the stacks of paper Scott had placed on it.

  Redfern locked his legs around Scott’s waist and snaked an arm around his neck. He pressed the knife up against Scott’s throat. “Do you think I’m that stupid?”

  Scott held very still.

  Redfern jerked Scott’s head back. “Do I have to give you a scar like mine to get an answer?”

  “No,” Scott croaked.

  “Where’s the Piper? Outside? Waiting?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Redfern dragged the knife an inch across Scott’s throat. No additional pressure was necessary. The serrations took up Redfern’s cause, and the blade cut through Scott’s skin. He felt the jagged edge invade his flesh and his blood run down his throat. He choked down a scream.

  “Lie to me again, and I won’t stop,” Redfern threatened.

  “I’m not lying. The Piper sent me, but I don’t know where he is.”

  Redfern repositioned himself to gain a better lock on Scott. He pressed his knees down on Scott’s arms to pin them to the floor. Although Redfern had him, the man had no strength. His prison time and whatever life he’d led since had given him a certain intuition, but not physical power. His 130-pound weight went only so far.

  “And what were his instructions?” Redfern asked. “To kill me?”

  “No. Just to bring you to him.”

  “But you don’t know where he is?”

  “I have to call him.”

  Redfern had made the mistake of only pinning Scott’s upper half. Scott’s legs were free, and he snapped them back. His feet slammed into Redfern’s back, pitching him forward.

  Free of the deadly threat, Scott thrust up onto all fours, bucking Redfern off. The force pushed Redfern into an untidy somersault, sending him crashing onto his back. Scott snapped to his feet. It was his turn to pin someone to the floor.

  Scott was on Redfern before he had a chance to recover. The Piper wannabe slashed the air with the steak knife. The blade sliced through Scott’s sweatpants and slashed his right calf. He didn’t stop to check the damage. He swept in and kicked Redfern in the face, snapping his head around and leaving him da
zed.

  Scott grabbed Redfern’s knife hand at the wrist and twisted hard, until Redfern yelled out and the knife went slack in his grasp. He snatched the knife away and disabled Redfern with a kick to the ribs.

  Suddenly feeling the pain in his injured leg, Scott staggered back, collapsing onto the couch. He examined the damage. He wouldn’t need stitches if he taped it up tight enough.

  Redfern groaned and squirmed on the floor. Scott wasn’t about to give Redfern a chance to recover, so he kicked him in the head. The kick knocked him out.

  Scott made the call. “I have him. Where do I bring him?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Scott guided Redfern’s Escort down the winding track toward the disused sawmill ten miles south of Redfern’s home. Light spilled from windows and splits in the siding. He stopped the Escort next to a pickup, the only other vehicle there.

  He put his hand on the pickup’s hood. It was cool. The Piper had been here a while. He’d have everything choreographed. Every move Scott made would have been anticipated before he even thought to make it.

  He went to the rear of the Escort and popped the trunk. Redfern lay in a fetal position in the cramped confines. He’d had a hell of a time fitting him in there. Unconscious and bound, Redfern had been a deadweight to lift, but he’d managed it. The ride from Redfern’s house had been silent except for the drone of the car’s engine and his thoughts. With Redfern so quiet for so long, Scott had feared he’d killed him, but two frightened eyes now stared back at him.

  Scott leaned in, yanked the duct tape from Redfern’s mouth, and tugged the gag free. Redfern gasped for air like he’d been underwater.

  “Don’t bother screaming,” Scott said. “We’re miles from any-where.”

  Redfern said nothing, putting all his effort into sucking air into his lungs.

  “Now, I’m going to cut the tape around your ankles. Start any shit, and it won’t be me you’ll have to worry about.”