by Ponzo, Gary
“She didn’t deserve to die.”
“How do you know?” Valczinski snapped at him.
Sandy shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. He rose from his crouch and reached for the telephone on the nightstand next to the bed. Valczinski watched him with wary eyes.
“The game is over,” he said as he dialed.
THIRTY-ONE
A buzzing sound woke Carter from a light doze. She still sat in the chair next to McNichol’s bed. She glanced at her watch. Nine-twenty. Still almost an hour before she had to call Maw and check in.
If she even decided to.
The buzzing sound came again. She followed the sound to the small plastic bin at the head of the bed containing all of McNichol’s personal belongings. She realized after a moment that it was his cell phone.
It could be Chelsea, she thought. Maybe she was able to get on an earlier flight.
She reached into the bin and picked up the phone. The caller ID read “Rutherford Hotel.”
Carter frowned. There’s no way Chelsea would have checked into a hotel before calling. So who was calling Scott from the Rutherford?
She opened the phone. “Hello?” she said cautiously.
The line was quiet for a moment. Then a male voice asked, “I’m calling for the FBI. Who’s this?”
“Agent Lori Carter,” she automatically responded, forcing her tone professional. “Who are you?”
“Agent Carter, this is Sandy Banks.”
Carter remained silent, surprise taking her voice.
“I heard that Agent McNichol is in stable condition,” the voice said. “I’m glad to hear that.”
Carter’s mind flew into action. She reached for her own cell phone. She had to order a trace as quickly as possible, just in case the caller ID was spoofed. Meanwhile she had to keep Banks on the line. “Thanks,” she said, though the words stuck in her throat and barely came out.
“I know you don’t mean that,” Banks said. “I wouldn’t, either, in your position.”
Carter flipped open her phone and accessed her contact list. “No, I do mean it,” she said.
“No, you don’t,” Banks said. “Let’s keep this call honest, okay? I’m only going to be on for another ten seconds, so don’t bother with a trace.”
Carter didn’t pause but continued to scroll down her list to the all-hours number for the computer geeks.
“I’ll tell you where I am, anyway, and save you the trouble.”
I know where you are, she thought. Aloud, she said, “I’m listening,” and pulled a pen from her pocket.
“I’m at the Rutherford Hotel in room number four-eleven. I’m with Captain Linda Valczinski. She’s city police.”
Carter held the phone in the crook of her shoulder and scrawled 4-1-1 furiously on the palm of her hand.
“And since you know pretty much everything else, I’ll tell you this, too. She’s the Keeper.”
Carter stopped, surprised.
“She and Lee Merchant set me up to kill his wife,” Banks told her. “And one of them killed Gail Ridley.”
Gail who?
“Probably Merchant, if you want my take on it,” Banks said.
“Wait a minute,” Carter started to say, but Banks interrupted.
“I don’t have a minute,” he said. “I don’t have any time left at all.”
The line went dead.
Carter stared down at the phone in her hand. She processed the information quickly, then considered her options.
If Banks was telling the truth—
Why would he lie now?
—and a city police captain and detective were dirty on this, she needed to use State Patrol for uniform presence. And who could she trust on the Bureau?
Not Maw. She’d call him from the house, after she’d detained Valczinski. If Banks was lying—
He’s not. I know it.
—then it would mean her career. From what Maw said earlier, her career was fairly well in the toilet anyway. But if she busted this case wide open, he would have no choice but to give her her due. It might piss him off something fierce, but in the end, he would bow to the results. And taking down a vigilante operation like the Four Horsemen was the kind of thing that made careers for people like Maw.
And saved them for people like me, Carter thought.
She reached out and squeezed McNichol’s hand. “Hang in there, Scott,” she whispered. “I’ll see you after.”
THIRTY-TWO
Sandy hung up the phone. Valczinski stared at him, a mixture of surprise and anger on her face.
“Why would you do that?” she asked.
Sandy let a small smile touch his lips. “For justice,” he said quietly.
“Don’t give me that shit,” Valczinski said, her eyes narrowing. “There’s no such thing.”
Sandy shrugged. “Maybe not. But you’re still going to face something like it.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she muttered.
Before Sandy could reply, he heard a beep behind him and the clicking sound of the door lock disengaging.
“Don’t move,” he hissed at Valczinski. He moved quickly into the kitchenette, taking up the best angle he could find. A moment later, Lee Merchant stepped through the door.
His face bore the same self-satisfied grin Sandy had seen on Valczinski’s face as she came down the hall a short time ago. Merchant glanced down at her on the ground with the bloody towel pressed to her knee. His expression turned to grim surprise. His hand snaked under his left armpit.
“Don’t move!” Sandy barked at him.
Merchant froze.
“Move your hand away from the gun,” Sandy ordered.
Merchant slowly withdrew his empty hand from under his light jacket.
Sandy heard shuffling sounds on the floor. He glanced over at Valczinski. She was scrambling toward the revolver further into the living room. He swung his aim onto her. Then he saw a flash of movement to his right.
Merchant was going for his gun again.
Sandy swung the muzzle back toward Merchant. “Don’t!” he yelled.
Merchant froze.
Sandy stepped forward and dropped into a crouch again. He had a clear view of Merchant from this position, but the counter hid him from Valczinski. Merchant’s eyes gave away her position. His smile gave away that she’d reached the pistol.
“Don’t come any closer,” Sandy told her. “I will put two slugs into his chest if I hear you moving this way.”
He strained with his ears, but all he could hear was the slight hum of the mini-fridge and her labored breathing.
Merchant turned his eyes toward Sandy. “Well, I guess we have ourselves a bit of a Mexican standoff here.”
Sandy looked into Merchant’s self-assured eyes. Disgust and rage bubbled up from the pit of his stomach.
“You need to move, Lee,” Valczinski said. “Just come to me.”
Merchant shook his head. “No, he’ll shoot. I believe he actually will shoot.”
“Please, Lee,” she begged. Her voice sounded thick with tears. “Come this way.”
Merchant smiled slightly, ignoring her. “What do we do now, Banks? This is your game. How do you want to play it?”
“I’ve already played it,” Banks said. He moved his index finger onto the trigger. The pressure required to depress the trigger was minimal. A few small pounds, was all. Just squeeze gently and he could send Lee Merchant to hell.
He clenched his jaw. Started to squeeze.
He stopped and let up.
Merchant smiled more widely at him. “Lost your taste for it, huh?”
“Go for your gun,” Sandy said in a low voice, “and you’ll find out.”
Merchant looked back at Valczinski. “He’s lost his nerve, baby.”
Sandy put his finger back on the trigger. He thought of Gail Ridley’s blank stare at the ceiling. Her slack jaw.
I should kill this sonofabitch.
Merchant looked back. Some of the confidence we
nt out of his eyes, but he maintained his façade. “You’ve got a curious set of morals, Banks,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”
“It’s over,” Sandy told him.
“Oh, I know,” Merchant said, smiling broadly again. “Thanks to you, it is. Now you can go your merry way and leave Linda and I to go ours. But I’d get out of town if I were you. The feds are going to be on your ass for a while.”
“The feds are on their way here right now,” Sandy told him.
“Bullshit,” he scoffed.
“I just called them thirty seconds ago. Ask her.”
Merchant eyed the telephone on the counter, then turned his gaze toward Valczinski.
“He did,” she said. “At least, he called someone right before you came in.”
Sandy pinpointed her location from her voice. She hadn’t moved more than a foot or two from where he’d kicked the revolver to.
Merchant looked back down at Sandy. “What the hell are you trying to pull?”
“Like I said, it’s over.”
“Why bring the feds into it? We could still all get out of this clean.”
“The feds are already into it,” Sandy said. “They’ve got Brian. He flipped. He’s their confidential informant.”
Merchant looked stunned.
“They’re up on the whole thing,” Sandy told him. “The FBI is going to blow the Four Horsemen project wide open.”
Merchant shook his head slightly. After a few moments, he stammered, “Are you sure—“
“I’m just as fucked as you are right now,” Sandy said.
Merchant looked back and forth between Sandy and Valczinski. “No,” he said, “there’s something more here. There has to be.” He pointed at Banks. “You’re CIA or some shit, aren’t you?”
Sandy frowned. “CIA? Please.”
“No, it has to be,” Merchant said. “This is all too convenient.”
“It doesn’t seem very convenient to me,” Sandy said, “considering we’re all going to prison.”
“No way. You’re in on it, aren’t you?”
“I’m in it up to my neck,” Sandy answered. “Unfortunately, it’s the same shit creek you’re in.”
“I know about your bogus military file,” Merchant blurted out. “Something more is going on here.”
Sandy’s jaw set. How had Merchant gotten access to military files?
It didn’t matter, he decided. It was all a dead end, anyway.
“What military file?” Valczinski asked Merchant.
“My name is Sandy Banks,” he said. “That’s who I am.”
“Bullshit,” Merchant said. A droplet of sweat appeared at his temple and rolled down the side of his face. “You’re undercover or something. This is a set up.”
“Undercover?” Sandy almost laughed. How many ways was that true? But not in the way Merchant obviously thought. “No,” he said. “But we are running out of time here.”
Merchant wiped away the sweat with his sleeve. He looked frantically back and forth between Sandy and Valczinski, as if he were weighing a decision. Then he pointed at her. “You know she’s the Keeper, right?”
“Lee!” Valczinski said his name in a tone full of surprise and hurt.
Merchant ignored her. “I’m just a lackey, Banks. Or whatever your name is. I didn’t know who was in that last file. She hired me to meet with you and make sure you followed through, but I had no idea what she was planning.”
Sandy said nothing. He kept his gun trained on Merchant. Another pair of sweat droplets rose on his opposite temple. Sandy could hear a soft sob from the living room.
“You have to believe me,” Merchant said.
In the distance, the tell-tale sound of police sirens began to sing.
Merchant held out his hands toward Sandy plaintively. “Please,” he said. “I had no idea.”
“You’re a liar,” Sandy said.
“No.” Merchant shook his head forcefully. “I’m telling the truth.”
“What about Gail Ridley?”
“Who?”
“Don’t lie to me!” Sandy snarled. “I know you were at her house. She told me.”
Merchant held up his hands apologetically. “Okay, yeah. I went to see her. I thought she might have some information about you guys, since she was Cal’s old lady. But she didn’t know anything.”
“She knew enough. She knew who you were. And you murdered her.”
“No. It wasn’t me. I swear to God.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I wasn’t the one who shot her, man.” Tears rose up in Merchant’s eyes. “Please, Banks, or whoever you are. You have to believe me. I didn’t kill anyone.”
Sandy glared at him. “I never said she was shot. How’d you know that was how she was murdered?”
Merchant’s eye twitched. “I-I didn’t know anything,” he stammered. “I just—”
“Shut up,” Sandy said. “I don’t want to hear any more of your lies. Just wait for the police to get here.”
Merchant’s face grew even more panicked. “Listen, I’ll turn State’s Witness. I’ll testify.” He searched out Sandy’s face, his eyes imploring. “I will.”
Sandy looked at him, disbelieving. “You never quit, do you?”
Merchant ignored his statement. “I know everything. Dates, places, names, everything.” He ticked items off on his fingers as he spoke. “I’ll give it all up. I’ll go to court and—“
A shot rang out.
Sandy jumped, but immediately saw where it had struck.
Another shot blast filled the small suite. Merchant staggered back into the wall next to the door. He sank to the ground, sliding against the wall. His face bore a baffled expression, tinged with disbelief. His mouth hung open and he seemed to be trying to finish his final sentence. Instead, only a light wheeze came out. His open eyes became a fixed stare.
There was a moment’s pause, then three more shots rang out. These came whizzing through the wooden cabinet between him and Valczinski. He heard one ricochet off of a pan inside the cupboard. Another one skipped past his foot, missing him by an inch.
The sound of the shots faded, followed by several metallic clicks. Sandy rose and swung around the cabinet, leveling his .45 at Valczinski. She held the small revolver out at an arm’s length, squeezing the trigger repeatedly. When she saw Sandy’s gun pointed at her, she let her hand fall to her side. The pistol clunked mutely on the carpet.
“Finish it,” she told him, her voice full of surrender.
Sandy looked at her long and hard. Then he glanced at Merchant’s still frame pitched awkwardly against the wall. The sirens were growing closer. He looked at Valczinski again.
“It is finished,” he said.
He turned away from her. He walked past Merchant’s still body next to the door. He slipped his .45 under his shirt as he opened the door and stepped into the hallway. At the head of the stairs, he pulled the fire alarm. The shrill clanging sound filled the hotel. He entered the stairwell and started downward. By the time he reached the main floor, confused and frightened guests littered the lobby. He melted easily into the crowd.
At the front doors, he flowed outside with the other panicked patrons, never looking back.
THIRTY-THREE
Special Agent Lori Carter sipped the coffee one of the State detectives had handed her. It was rich and textured, unlike the slightly burned taste of cheap convenience store brew that she was used to on crime scenes and stakeouts. One of the perks of investigating a homicide at a five star hotel, she figured.
Carter flipped open her phone and dialed the hospital. Someone with a friendly voice answered on the second ring. “ICU, Nurse’s Station.”
“Is this Brenda?” Carter asked.
“It is.”
“Brenda, it’s Lori Carter,” she said. “I’m just calling to check on my partner, Agent McNichol.”
“Oh, hi there, Lori. He’s fine. I just checked on him less than five minutes ago. In fact, his wife
has arrived and is with him right now.”
“Good. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Carter smiled at Brenda’s warm tone. She hung up and slipped her phone in her pocket.
The statie exited room 411 and walked down the hall towards her, ducking under the crime scene tape. “The male is DOA, no question. Looks like two small caliber shots to the sternum.”
“Shot through the heart,” Carter mused.
“Pretty much.”
“And Valczinski?”
He rubbed the short hair on top of his head. “I’ve got two troopers with her up at the hospital. Her knee looked nasty but nothing fatal.”
“The troopers will stay with her?”
He smiled. “Oh, yes, ma’am. They’ll gown up and go into the operating room, if necessary.”
“Doctors won’t like that,” Carter said.
The statie shrugged. “My troopers won’t care. Give a trooper a mission, he carries it out.”
Carter nodded, satisfied. “Did she say anything?”
“Nothing very coherent. I think she was going into shock from the gunshot wound.”
“What did she say?”
“Something about being Lee’s keeper, I think. Lee’s the DOA. Detective Lee Merchant.”
Carter sipped her coffee, trying to disguise her anticipation. “What was it she said about being the keeper again?”
”I don’t know for sure. The first trooper on scene wrote it down exactly.” He fished out a piece of notepaper from his breast pocket and looked at it a moment. Then he read, “Oh, Lee. I’m sorry I was ever the keeper. Sorry for everything.” He glanced up at her. “Mean anything to you?”
Carter nodded and took the slip of paper from him. “Means everything,” she said.
The statie looked at her, waiting for an explanation. When she didn’t provide one, he shrugged. “Okay, well, I’ve got a crime scene to work. My forensics people are about five minutes out. My CO called the Chief of Police, so I’d expect some city people to start showing up here pretty soon.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how happy they’re going to be, seeing as how it’s one of their own dead inside and another one up at the hospital.”