Tall Man in Ray-Bans (A John Tall Wolf Novel)
Page 18
She clicked off and gave Lily a nod.
Annie told her sister, “That was Colin’s friend, Kerry. Seeing if everything’s all right.”
They both felt reassured their lawyer had someone watching out for the cops.
Lily was the one to ask the question, “Coy, do you and the boys know each other?”
“We met earlier today,” Coy said.
Annie looked at her sons. “Where did you meet?”
Guy told her, “The airport in Calgary.”
Louie’s nod affirmed the point.
“But what was the reason for the three of you to get together?” Lily asked.
Both sisters were starting to feel uneasy. The lives they’d lived had sharp dividing lines. Having those boundaries disappear before their eyes carried with it a sense of menace.
“I called them,” Coy said. “They agreed to fly out and meet me.”
Annie asked with an edge to her voice, “Why did you want to meet with my sons?”
Coy shrugged. “Money, of course. You think maybe we could get something to drink?”
Guy said, “Yeah, and maybe we should all be sitting down for this little chat.”
In the motorhome up the block, John said, “We’re off to a good start. Coy sounds like a natural for this, and Guy’s going to be strong, too.”
“Yeah, but what about the younger brother, Louie?” Melvin asked. “He could still be the joker in the deck.”
John nodded. “Could be, but I think he’ll follow Guy’s lead.”
Kent looked at the two Americans. If things went wrong, he’d have to apportion the blame to both of them in order to escape most of it himself. He’d have been more nervous if SAC Melvin had been the one taking the lead. Of the two Yanks, he thought Tall Wolf was the smarter.
Now, they’d have to see if he was lucky as well.
Kent’s mobile phone chirped and he answered by giving his name.
“Yes, I see,” he said. “Of course. I’m sure you did your best.”
John and Melvin looked at him as he broke the connection.
Kent said, “A bit of bad luck, I’m afraid. Harvey Kingsbury freely admitted a business relationship with Ms. Forger, but swears he did nothing illegal, and knows of nothing illegal any of his clients might have done.”
John frowned. He’d been counting on Kingsbury to provide a documentary link between Annie Forger and Randy Bear Heart. Now —
“Under a bit of prodding, though,” Kent continued, “Kingsbury did admit to providing Ms. Forger with one hundred thousand dollars cash on three separate occasions, three hundred thousand total. He said she repaid him on schedule.”
Melvin asked, “U.S. dollars or Canadian?”
“U.S.,” Kent said.
John wanted to know the dates Kingsbury provided the money.
Kent got back on the phone and came up with the information.
The first time Annie got the cash from Kingsbury was the week before Vern Forger and his teammates had died. Nobody in the van believed that was a coincidence. The question was how to prove the money paid for the killings.
“Get her to talk,” John said.
He got up and grabbed the picnic hamper they’d seized from Go Hollywood.
Sergeant Bramley opened the door to the motorhome for John. She stepped out to let him exit. As he passed her, his body blocking the view of the others, she slipped him a small semi-auto, only seven rounds in the clip, but it was better than yelling for help should things get iffy.
Colin McTee sat at his desk, drumming his fingers on the polished teak.
He hated coincidence as much as any cop did. Annie Forger’s sons and a friend of Lily’s showing up together the day after the two sisters had been confronted by the RCMP, the FBI and the BIA just didn’t wash. Someone was trying to be clever here.
That had to be the case even if Kerry had it right that there had been no alarm in his client’s voice when they’d spoken. McTee had ordered his associate to stop orbiting the block and park directly across the street from the sisters’ residence, telling Kerry to call him immediately if the cops showed up. That was a reasonable precaution. He was a busy man, but if he wasn’t able to concentrate on anything else —
His phone rang. Kerry was calling back.
“A man is approaching the house,” she said. “He’s not in uniform.”
“Please describe him.”
Kerry did so.
Tall Wolf, no doubt in McTee’s mind.
Would Superintendent Kent have allowed an American to go about armed in Canada?
He shouldn’t have, but who knew how much influence these people had?
He was about to ask for his associate’s opinion on the matter, as if she were equipped even to guess whether a man might be armed, when Kerry said, “He’s carrying a picnic hamper.”
McTee found that more ominous than if Tall Wolf had had a gun in hand.
What was an American federal agent doing with a picnic hamper?
What the hell did he have in there?
“I’ll be right there, Ms. Colcroft. Do nothing unless our clients are led out of their house under arrest. If that’s the case, do your best to stall the authorities until I arrive.”
He’d hired the young woman for her pluck as well as her intelligence.
Now, McTee might see how good his judgment was.
At the airport in Calgary, the Forger brothers had met Coy Wilson and had been given the copy of Lily White Bird’s confession to read. How Lily had shot and killed Daniel Red Hawk, and how Coy had taken a call from a distraught Lily on the night their cousin Jackson had disappeared. Lily had abruptly sold her store and left town soon after. Jackson’s body had recently been found in chains in the dry bed of Lake Travis in Austin, his skull cleaved by a sharp object. However, it was unlikely that a woman acting alone would kill and dispose of her own son in such a manner. John Tall Wolf suspected Randy Bear Heart was the killer.
They’d also heard from John of his suspicion that someone working with or for Bear Heart had slipped a mickey to the guy who’d crashed the car in which their father had died.
The news that their mother had been involved in killing their father had hit the boys like a cross-check into the boards. Guy had thought Louie might bawl, but his kid brother sat there stone faced and nodding as if things made sense to him for the first time. Having had the opportunity to think about it, Guy had to agree.
You were the kind of woman who killed your husband, maybe you wouldn’t be so hot to have his sons around either.
Annie and Lily were in the kitchen together now, getting drinks for their guests.
Guy lowered his head and whispered into his mike, “Don’t see any guns so far.”
Coy, Guy and Louie sat on one side of the dining room table. Lily and Annie took two chairs on the opposite side. They brought out bottles of spring water and glasses for their guests. A bowl of mixed nuts sat within everyone’s reach.
Louie was the only one to fill his glass and take a sip of water.
Coy and Guy had the same thought: Throw the bottles at Lily and Annie, if need be.
“You’ve got two choices here,” Coy told the sisters. “You can pay us or we can call the cops.”
“What would you have to tell the police that would be worth any money?” Annie asked.
Louie took the copy of Lily’s confession out of his pocket and said, “Aunt Lily killed her husband and is an accomplice to the murder of her own son.”
It was John’s idea to have Louie spring the surprise, throw the sisters off balance, not let them know from which direction the next blow might come.
When Lily looked at Coy she saw a stone mask.
Louie passed the confession to his mother. She saw it was a photostat and there would be no point ripping it to shreds. She read it and turned to her sister with a look of contempt.
“How could you be so stupid?” she asked Lily.
That was when John walked into the house, picnic
hamper on one arm, and said, “Now, now, Ms. Forger. You weren’t so smart yourself.”
“He’s in,” the Mountie monitoring the recorder in the motorhome said.
“Alert all units to be ready to move,” Kent told him, “but not until I give the word.”
As the Mountie relayed his instructions, Kent leaned close to Melvin and whispered, “Tell me honestly, Gilbert, would you want to be in Tall Wolf’s shoes right now?”
“Maybe. If I had a gun.”
Bramley, who had very keen hearing, thought, You wouldn’t have gotten it from me, mister.
“Where did you get that?” Annie demanded, looking at the picnic hamper.
John took an empty chair, positioned it two feet from the head of the table. There was a good eight feet between him and Louie. The sisters would have to turn their heads to look from one to the other. Distractions would be available, should they become necessary.
“Found it in the back room of Go Hollywood,” John said. “Courtesy of a search warrant obtained by the RCMP.”
He took the Tommy gun out of the the hamper and placed it on his lap.
“You can’t have that,” Lily blurted. “We got rid of it.”
“Shut up!” Annie ordered.
Coy said, “Didn’t get rid of it good enough apparently.”
“We threw it in the Bow Riv—”
A resounding slap from Annie cut Lily short.
“Be quiet!” she commanded.
Guy and Louie exchanged a look. They no longer had any doubt Mom could be dangerous.
A drop of blood appeared at the tip of Lily’s nose. Coy handed her a handkerchief, a look of pity now on her face.
Lily dabbed at the blood and said, “Thank you.”
Annie shook her head in disgust and told her sister. “They’re screwing with us, Lily. That gun isn’t ours.”
Before Lily could consider that possibility, Coy asked her, “Didn’t you love Jackson? How could you have had anything to do with his death?”
Before she could respond, Louie jumped to his feet and asked his mother the question that had been consuming both him and his brother, “Did you kill Dad, him and his friends?”
Both brothers fixed their mother with glares, awaiting an answer.
Annie raised a hand as if she were going to stand, lean across the table and slap her younger son — until John leaned forward, the Tommy gun pointed in Annie’s direction.
“Unh-uh,” he said. “No physical violence.”
Annie sat back in her seat, her eyes cold and dark.
She said to John, “These three told us they wanted money. You for sale, too?”
John shrugged. No audio recorder would pick up that.
Annie turned her attention to the younger people. “How much do you want?”
Coy said, “I think that depends on how much you tell us. No answers, all the money.”
Guy and Louie nodded, the older brother saying, “Yeah. That sounds fair.”
Lily started to speak, but Annie held up a hand.
“Not a damn word out of you, Lily. That gun is not ours.”
Lily leaned toward John. “It sure looks like it.”
Annie ground her teeth. “Do I have to smack you again?”
“You try it and I’ll knock your teeth out,” Coy told her.
Annie turned to her sons. “Are you going to let her threaten me?”
Guy reminded her. “You haven’t told us about Dad yet.”
Both sisters sat mute. For a moment, they rested their shoulders against one another, a silent show of solidarity. They might have sat that way for some time if Coy hadn’t started to laugh, and continued, slapping her hand on the table.
Guy and Louie looked at Coy as if maybe she was losing it.
In the end, it was Lily who felt compelled to speak.
“Are you all right, Coy?”
Annie rolled her eyes and leaned away from her sister.
Coy let her laughter peter out. “Me? I’m fine. Your sister just cracked me up, that’s all. She reminded me of my own big sister. Doreen used to smack me around, too, when Mom and Dad were out of the house. Then, when it suited her, she acted like she was my best friend.”
Annie sensed what Coy was doing. “Don’t listen to her, Lily. She’s trying to come between us.”
John watched the by-play, waiting for an opportunity to buttress Coy’s line of attack.
Coy gave one more laugh, short and sharp. “Yeah, Lily. Listen to Doreen there, like she’s going to stick with you through thick and thin. Think about it, Lily. The cops have your confession.”
John’s moment had come. “We’ve also got you as an accomplice to Randy Bear Heart for everything he did. You took a loan against your business in Austin and bailed Randy out when his business was going under. The paper trail is there for anyone to see. You’re an accomplice after the fact to all of Randy’s crimes.”
Annie’s contempt for her sister’s carelessness shone through once again.
“There,” Coy said, pointing to Annie. “Did you see that look? That’s exactly what Doreen would have done to me.”
Lily was looking at Annie now, and unable to stop herself the older sister said, “You are so stupid.”
That was when Lily broke. She pushed her chair away from Annie and pointed her finger at her. “She killed Vern and those other two. She paid Randy to do it, and he got some hooker to put something into that one boy’s drink. She told me so.”
Annie might have attacked Lily right then if John hadn’t spoke up.
“We’ve got her anyway,” he lied. “The money Harvey Kingsbury gave her was marked; the Canadian authorities were investigating him.”
Sneering, Annie said, “Bullshit! I took Harvey’s money and put it in the main office of my bank; I got money out of five other branches to pay Randy!”
Everyone sat there quietly. It took Annie a moment to realize she had just confessed to murder. She looked at her sons and Coy. “I’ll give you a million dollars each to go away and forget all this.”
“Yeah, you’re good at sending people away,” Louie said.
“What about him?” Guy asked, nodding in John’s direction.
“Him?” Annie laughed. “He has no right to be here. He can’t just walk into someone’s home. Nothing he says will matter in court.”
John shook his head.
“I do have a right to be here. I have an arrest warrant for Ms. Lily White, aka Lily White Bird.”
John put the Tommy gun on the table, stuck a hand in a pocket to get the warrant.
The automatic weapon lay halfway between the two sisters.
There for either of them to reach out and —
Colin McTee ran into the room and sized up the situation at a glance.
“Do not touch that damn thing!” the lawyer yelled.
John looked at the lawyer and thought, Shit.
Having Lily or Annie grab the Tommy gun would have been —
“No!” McTee bellowed, even more alarmed now.
John turned and saw Annie pulling a handgun from under her shirt.
He’d taken his eye off the ball. No way was he going to get to the gun Bramley had given him. Not in time. He was sure Marlene Flower Moon must be laughing at him somewhere.
The Forger brothers, though, still trying to cope with their family tragedy, only had eyes for Mom. They jumped up and threw two solid hip checks into the dining room table. It slammed into Annie just as the gun cleared her waistband. A shot rang out and Annie went down.
The Tommy gun clattered to the floor but didn’t discharge. It was unloaded.
Lily fell to her knees beside her sister and tried to stop the bleeding.
Guy went to see how he could help.
But Louie just turned to John and said, “Looks like we saved the day.”
John asked him, “Yeah, you did, but who invited you to the party?”
Chapter 43
Banff, Alberta — July 19-26, the present
As an accomplice after the fact to Randy’s crimes, Annie was as cooked as any meal she’d ever eaten with the killer who’d fancied himself as an upgrade on Clyde Barrow.
Lily was ready to repent and repeated her confession to the RCMP and the FBI, but she had refused to say anything if John Tall Wolf was in the room. John had agreed to step out. He wasn’t concerned about claiming credit. His career at the BIA didn’t include the notion of rising in the organization.
He was interested, though, in reading the transcript of Lily’s statement. She had elaborated on her original mea culpa. When Lily had called Jackson that night, she had only wanted him to take her out of her home and bring her somewhere safe. Randy had beaten her. It had been the first time he’d laid a hand on her. She thought it had shocked him as much as it had hurt her. He had run out of their house.
Jackson had arrived, wanted to bash his father when he’d seen what Randy had done to his mother, but Lily had told him that for the moment she just wanted to get away and persuaded him to help her pack some clothes. Randy had returned unexpectedly — just as they closed Lily’s suitcase.
Father and son got into a fight. It raged throughout the house. Jackson was getting the better of it when Randy managed to grab an ax used to shave logs for the fireplace. He cleaved his son’s skull with the blade.
John sighed. The image was horrible to imagine. Worse than getting clipped by a boat’s propeller as he had first thought. Maybe as bad as leaving an infant for Coyote.
Randy had bought Lily’s silence, initially, by threatening to testify against her for killing Daniel Red Hawk. It had helped Lily to rationalize her complicity in Jackson’s death when Randy broke down in tears and grieved over his son’s death. He said he’d loved the boy, had wanted him to become a famous musician. He told Lily that the two of them had to heal each other. She had believed that, because she wanted to. Randy had told her they had to be good to one another to get the job done.