CHAPTER 34
VISITING HOURS at the hospital were long over, but Stone found a sympathetic nurse who let him into the ward after he explained his connection.
“That’s right,” the nurse said. “Doc Warner mentioned that. Who would’ve thought to use a car engine to start somebody’s heart?”
Somebody who’s been in a war.
Willie was propped up in the bed and hooked up to an IV drip. Other cables connected to his body ran to a monitor where lines and numbers darted across.
When Stone walked in Willie opened his eyes and said, “Who the hell are you?”
“Ben. I helped your grandfather get you here.”
Willie put out a hand. “Gramps told me about that. I guess I owe you my life.”
“You look like you’re doing better.”
“Don’t feel all that much better.”
“Did they tell you how long you’ll be in here?”
“No. I still don’t know what the hell happened.”
“You overdosed.”
“I know I did. I just don’t know how I did it.”
“So what’d they find in your bloodstream?”
“Docs said oxycodone along with some other stuff.”
“That would do it.”
“But I didn’t have any. That shit is expensive unless you got a prescription. You’re talking a couple hundred bucks a pill on the street.”
Stone pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed. Willie Coombs had longish brown hair and a good-looking face though tiny lines were already massing around his eyes and lips. He looked like Danny Riker, only more worn. “All right, what did you have and what did you take?”
“Hey, you some kind of undercover cop?”
“Well, if I were it’d be a pretty clear case of entrapment.”
Willie let out a long sigh. “I’m too tired to give a shit. What I usually do is get me some fentanyl patches, shuck ’em in two, squeeze out the juice, cook it up and inject it in my feet. Gives you a nice pop, like heroin.”
“Fentanyl? China white, right?” Stone said.
“You sound like you know your drugs.”
“You said that’s what you usually do?”
“Prescription ran out. So I just got me some run-of-the-mill street crack. Never had no trouble like this.”
“Bob told me it was crack.”
Willie looked surprised. “Well, if he told you, why the hell ask me?”
“I always like to confirm things with a corroborating source.”
“You sure you ain’t a cop?”
“Not even close. But crack is a stimulant. Your pupils would have been seven or eight millimeters, not pinpoints.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“How can you take crack and then go to work in the mines?”
“Had a couple days off. Sick leave,” Willie added hastily.
“You sure you didn’t take any oxycodone that night?”
“I wouldn’t have taken any even if I had it.”
“Why not?”
“Doc Warner put me on it when I busted up my arm in the mines couple years ago. Got some kind of reaction to it so I don’t use the damn stuff.”
“Did you take anything else? Anything you can remember? Eating or drinking?”
“Had a couple beers. Picked up some takeout at Rita’s.”
Stone perked up. “What sort of takeout?”
“Burger and fries and a platter of grilled nachos.”
“So you ate, drank and then did the crack?”
“Yep. Started acting jumpy and shit and rambling on, but I was by myself, so that was okay. Before I was going to bed I took some Tylenol. I always take Tylenol anyway, every night. Just turned twenty-three, but I feel like I’m sixty some days.”
“Tylenol?”
“Then I remember Gramps showing up. Then things really started getting weird.”
“Who knew you took Tylenol every night?”
“Ain’t like I kept it a secret. Lot of folks take pills up here.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see that,” Stone said dryly. “So anybody really could’ve known?”
“What the hell are you getting at, mister?”
“If somebody replaced your Tylenol with oxycodone pills, that could explain how it got in your system. How many did you take?”
“A couple, least I think.”
“Were there any left in the bottle?”
“A few.”
“Do you remember if they looked like Tylenol pills?”
Willie sat up, pulling the IV lines and cables taut. “You saying somebody’s trying to kill me? Who the hell would wanta do that?”
“You’d know that better than me, Willie.”
“I doubt somebody’s coming after me for my double-wide, guns and hunting bows. Other than that, I ain’t got much.”
“Forget the money factor. Anybody have a grudge against you?”
“’Bout what?”
“Did you tick somebody off? Steal somebody’s girl?”
“I had a girl,” Willie snapped. “But she’s dead.”
“Debby Randolph?”
“How did you know that?”
“Small town. I heard she committed suicide.”
“Yeah, that’s what they say.”
“You think different?”
“What the hell reason did she have to commit suicide? Tell me that.”
“I saw some of her work at the craft shop. She was talented.”
Willie’s face assumed a proud look. “She could draw and paint. And make stuff out of clay. She had a studio set up in a storage shed behind her parents’ house. That’s where her momma found her,” he added quietly. “That’s why I took some sick leave. I went back to work after the funeral, but, man, my head was all messed up.”
“I can understand that, Willie. I really can.”
“You wanta see a picture of her?”
Stone nodded and Willie reached into the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out his wallet. He slid a photo out and passed it over to Stone.
Willie and Debby were standing next to each other. The tall Willie towered over the petite Debby. She had dirty blonde hair and an infectious smile with eyes full of warmth.
“You can tell from her face she’s just a really nice person.”
Willie slowly nodded as he stared down at the dead woman’s face.
As Stone gazed at the picture, an obvious point clicked in his head. “She doesn’t look like someone who would kill herself.”
“I’d asked her to marry me and she said yes. Happy as can be. Then the next thing I know she’s dead.” His face trembled and the tears started to slide down his thin, pale cheeks. “That’s why I got back on the drugs after she died. I had nothing left.”
“Did you tell people she and you were getting married?”
“No, I asked her not to till I had time to get a ring. I wanted to show her momma and daddy that I was serious. I’d saved up ’bout all I needed. Then I’d just come off the shift at the mine when I heard. Couldn’t believe it.”
“What time was she found?”
“Early in the morning. She’d been dead awhile they say.”
“And no one heard the shot.”
“They live in a little holler, nobody close.”
“But you said it was in a building behind the house.”
“Her momma didn’t hear nothing ’cause she’s about deaf without her hearing aids in. Her daddy Toby’s a trucker and he was on the road in Kansas when Debby died. So unless he’s got himself elephant ears, he didn’t hear a damn thing either.”
“Whose gun was used?”
“Toby’s ten-gauge.”
“Did you tell Sheriff Tyree about your doubts?”
“Till I was blue in the damn face. He just kept saying, ‘Where’s the evidence, son?’ Her prints and her daddy’s prints were the only ones on the gun. She was all alone. Nobody had no reason to kill her so they decided she must’ve done i
t herself. Real damn smart.”
“Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill Debby?”
“She never hurt nobody. Sweetest thing under the sun. And she’s all I had.”
“Before she died, was she upset or nervous about anything?”
He shrugged. “No, not that I could tell.”
“When’s the last time you talked to her?”
“Around eleven that night. She sounded fine.”
“Would it surprise you if I told you that Danny Riker was really upset that she was dead?”
Willie wiped his eyes with some tissues, balled them up, and threw them in the wastebasket. “I guess not.”
“You guess not?”
“Danny and her even dated before we got together. But Danny dated every girl in the high school so there wasn’t nothing there really.”
“Danny’s here in the hospital too.”
“What! What happened?”
“Some guys busted him up, bad. Any ideas there?”
“No. Danny and me weren’t that close anymore.”
“But you two were friends.”
“Best friends.” He paused. “He came to see me here.”
“When was that?”
“Yesterday afternoon. We had a good talk. High school football and all.”
“You two were teammates.”
Willie grinned and Stone could suddenly see the young man under the coal dust. “Man, we were the team. He threw thirty-seven touchdown passes his senior year and twenty-eight of them were to me. We both could’ve played for Virginia Tech. But I got a damn DUI and they rescinded my scholarship and Danny hurt his knee. Glory days all right.” His grin disappeared and the young man was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.
“So Danny didn’t say anything that might explain why he got attacked?”
“No, nothing like that. He said he was real sorry about Debby. And he told me to keep off the pills. Said he was thinking about heading out again and he wanted me to come with him. We’d go west and start over.”
“Were you interested?”
“Maybe. Ain’t nothing keeping me here now.”
“I understand things changed between you two when the Rikers came into all that money?”
“I got my head turned around over that. I mean, they had a lot and I ain’t got nothing. But I should’ve just sucked it up. They didn’t owe me nothing. And he lost his daddy over that and all. I know how that feels.”
“I heard your father was killed in a hunting accident. Did he work in the mines too?”
“No, he was a guard up at Blue Spruce Prison. It was one of his best friends that accidentally shot him.”
“Who was that?”
“Rory Peterson.”
“Peterson? And then he ended up being murdered.”
“Yeah, but that was just recent. My daddy got killed over two years ago.”
Stone checked his watch and rose. “I need to get going.”
“Is Danny going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. They got him pretty bad. But you need to worry about yourself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If somebody tried to kill you by switching those pills, they’re likely to try again.”
CHAPTER 35
KNOX MADE a late-night trip to Langley to talk to some folks he’d known for a long time. He trusted these people as much as he trusted anyone these days. And, more important, they had no love lost for Macklin Hayes. He asked the questions he needed to ask and got the answers. Some surprised him, some didn’t. It was only a start, but it was more than he’d had a few hours before.
The CIA had lost a human asset about the time that John Carr was disappearing. Nicknamed “Einstein” by his colleagues, Max Himmerling had been nearing retirement when he’d died in an overseas chopper accident, his body burned so badly it had been identified through dental records. The reason this interested Knox was because that sounded like a typical Carter Gray maneuver in disposing of an agent who had committed an unforgivable act. Himmerling was nearing seventy, with the physical ability of a cow and who’d been assigned stateside at Langley for the last thirty years. So his turning up in a flamed-out chopper somewhere in the Middle East did not make sense. Yet no one at CIA or the U.S. government dared question the circumstances of the man’s death. What Himmerling had done must have been particularly egregious because he’d been a valuable asset for the CIA and Carter Gray. And though no one would say it out loud, from what Knox was able to find out, that something might have to do with John Carr. And he’d found something else out. The records of the Triple Six Division hadn’t been destroyed, like he’d thought. The CIA, apparently loath to part with any documented part of its past, no matter how politically incorrect it might seem in hindsight, had moved those records somewhere.
And that led Knox to the next phase of his “parallel” investigation.
It took him to several different locations and he was aware that Hayes’ men were following him every step of the way. Yet he had pretty decent cover, he was conducting an investigation on the man’s behalf. After many twists and turns along the investigative trail, he reached his final destination. The fairly new and ultra-secret CIA underground records complex was in the middle of three hundred bucolic acres twenty miles west of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello near Charlottesville, Virginia. The CIA had purchased the property over two decades ago for an exceptionally good price that set the American taxpayer back a mere eleven million dollars. That had been, by far, the cheapest part of the project.
The property had barns, stables, paddocks and even a stately brick colonial manor house that was ostensibly owned by a multinational corporation headquartered in Belgium that ostensibly used it for corporate retreats. Indeed, several times a year, long convoys of limos and SUVs with camera-toting, Flemish-speaking executives could be seen heading to the estate along the winding gravel path. The CIA spent about one million bucks a year to perpetuate this myth and considered every dollar well spent.
High-speed elevators inside the manor house and two of the barns allowed access to an elaborate underground labyrinth of concrete tunnels, bunkers and rooms that were protected against any type of eavesdropping. It sounded very James Bond–like, and yet the reality was there were several facilities like this across the country. On two occasions curious souls had managed to open the doors of these structures—one in the Pacific Northwest and one in Nevada—and seen what was actually going on inside. Knox had never known what had happened to those unfortunate folks. Abducted by aliens was probably the myth spread by Agency disinformation teams. It was just the cost of doing business and keeping Americans safe. Well, except for folks who unfortunately opened doors they shouldn’t have.
When complete the underground labyrinth had only set the American people back over one billion dollars, not a cent of it acknowledged in any budget of the U.S. government. The construction workers were relocated, without really ever knowing exactly where they’d been. Yet keeping secrets was an expensive proposition and the CIA had more secrets than most. And governments had hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on projects like this. For that level of coin one did not rent space at Storage Town USA; one built cement cities underneath crappy barns.
As Knox rode the elevator down he carefully went over for the hundredth time his next step. He had pretty much every security clearance
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