Bannon Brothers

by Janet Dailey

  “Mmm. Smells like a heart attack,” Paul said with satisfaction. He didn’t turn around.

  Hoebel kicked the door shut and slung the pizza box on a battered L-shaped desk that had been brought into the room and forgotten. “Let’s eat.”

  “Throw a couple slices on a plate and bring ’em here,” Paul said absentmindedly.

  “You into Montgomery’s account yet?” The chief pried open the lid and pulled at two greasy slices. Melted cheese on the hot dough stuck to his fingers and he blew on them.

  “Not yet.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to get started?”

  “Food first. I’m looking up your creepy pal right now. Cutt.”

  Hoebel froze for a moment. Then he took a napkin and removed the slices, doubling the flimsy plates before he brought the pizza over.

  “Did you think I was bluffing about him?” the chief asked.

  Paul didn’t look up when the pizza slices were shoved under his nose. “I like to check things,” he said.

  “Way to go.”

  “Yeah.” The kid folded the plate into something like a half-funnel and held it over his face, lapping up a few drops of grease and then taking a bite from the part that slid down. He rested the mess in his lap and tapped a key to pull up a law-enforcement form that Hoebel recognized instantly. “Can I have a Coke?”

  The chief brought one over and set it down, popping the tab. “Here you go. Sugar up.”

  Some soda foamed out but Paul just picked up the can and slurped off the excess.

  “Thought I’d take a look at his rap sheet. You seen this, Chief? No misdemeanors. All felonies. Violent dude.”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  Paul took a break from his research to gobble the rest of the slices. “So where is he tonight?” he asked, wiping his hands on jeans that were already dirty.

  “I don’t know,” Hoebel said curtly.

  The hacker got up to get himself more pizza, then sat down after he ate it, tipping his head back to finish his can of soda. He crumpled the can and threw it in the direction of a wastebasket that never got emptied, and missed. “Oops. Oh, well. Not trying out for basketball,” he said philosophically.

  “C’mon, Paul.” Exasperation laced the chief’s gruff voice.

  “Okay, okay. Back to work. You want Monty money. Here we go.”

  Hoebel watched the step-by-step hacking without much interest. He’d seen it fifty times by now. The thrill was gone.

  Paul hummed. “Changes have been made. This looks different.”

  “Like what?”

  The kid clicked on the keys. “The two million is out of the reward trust.” There was more clicking. “The forwarding code says—I don’t recognize the number. Could be a bank he hasn’t used before.”

  “I don’t care. Grab it. Now.”

  Paul prowled through the connections he would need to make that happen, staying under software radar. But he stopped. “Ohhh, it went to that bank. No can do. Sorry, dude.”

  Hoebel straightened. “Why the hell not?”

  “Look, technically, I can,” the hacker said, with a note of smugness in his voice. “But I have a problem with where it is.”

  “Care to enlighten me?” The chief made the rubbing motion that indicated money, using his first two fingers and his thumb, putting his whole hand between Paul’s face and the laptop screen so the kid couldn’t ignore him. “Don’t forget I have that cash you wanted. Right here, nice and warm, next to my gun. Do what I pay you to do.”

  Paul pushed away from the laptop. “Nope.”

  “Why?” The chief’s face was starting to turn angry colors. He controlled his temper. Barely.

  “Because the bank it got moved to didn’t buy their security setup out of a box. It’s custom.”

  “So?”

  “The hacker who taught me went straight after his conviction. He ended up making more money on the good guy side, actually. Anyway, that’s his. He wrote special code for this one bank. I know how he works and he knows how I work.” He looked at an increasingly infuriated but silent chief. “Hackers are kinda like old-time jazz musicians. We recognize each other’s riffs.”

  Hoebel grabbed the kid and lifted him out of his folding chair, then held him against the wall by his throat. “Don’t give me that crap! Get the money out of there!”

  Paul’s breath hissed out, then in again. His glasses were askew on his nose and his pale eyes blinked furiously. His mouth tried to form words.

  Hoebel dropped him. The kid coughed and choked, then vomited a sour torrent of coke and pizza all over the floor. The chief jumped back as Paul staggered to his chair and sat down, his head drooping. He rubbed his throat. Finally he managed to say something, a single word that hung in the nasty-smelling air.

  “N-no.”

  Hoebel swore violently but hung back on his side of the disgusting mess on the floor.

  “What’s the matter?” Paul asked in a raw, low voice. “You afraid I’ll spew some more? Don’t want to get your shoes dirty?”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  Paul coughed and spat. “Sure. Pay me, and I’ll keep it shut longer, if you know what I mean.”

  Slowly, with obvious reluctance, Hoebel moved to get out his wallet. He opened it and took several hundred-dollar bills, setting them on the table by Paul. The kid took the money and counted it. “Not enough. Go get more.” He hit a key and turned the laptop to face Hoebel. “You’re on webcam.”

  The chief’s face turned livid as he stepped forward and whacked the laptop off the table. The kid grabbed it before it hit the floor, and scooped up his backpack, running right through the vomit to jerk open the door and get away.

  Hoebel hesitated just long enough to let it happen. Then he stepped around the splashed pool of pizza and Coke and went out the door to the hallway. Empty. A blast of fresh air hit his face from an open, unseen exit to the outside at the top of the stairs to the basement.

  He looked down at wet sneaker prints on the carpet. Hoebel glanced back into the empty room. He didn’t have to explain anything to Bill. Let the guard deal with it.

  Avoiding the prints, he edged along the wall and left. When he got outside, staying away from lights, he saw the bulky, unmarked SUV he drove. Someone was in it.

  Hoebel was half tempted to collar the kid, bring him in on probable. The punk oughta spend a night in a holding cell with the fun people, he thought angrily.

  Nah. He’d just rough him up.

  He stuck to the dark side of the parking lot and reached the door, yanking it open. For a confused second, he thought the kid had gotten taller. Then he realized it was Cutt, slouched behind the wheel.

  “Hi,” the lanky man said in a cool voice. “You should lock your car. Someone might steal it.”

  “What the—what are you doing here?” The chief toned down the volume and the heat. After what Bannon had told him about Cutt, he had to be careful. Another problem he didn’t need.

  “I was driving by the lot and I saw your wheels. I parked around the corner.” He lifted a bottle of cheap rye and waved it at Hoebel. “Did we have a meeting tonight? I forgot.”

  “No.”

  “Then how come I saw Paul run out? You two fight?”

  “No again.” An edge of exasperation crept into the chief’s voice. “He had to leave.”

  “Don’t you usually drive him back to campus?” Cutt said in a needling voice. He gave a belch that reeked of booze.

  “Slide over,” the chief replied. “Where do you want to go? You’re drunk.” He’d got lucky. Cutt wouldn’t remember much of this.

  The other man tipped the bottle over his mouth and finished up the dregs. He tossed it over the seat and it fell on the carpeted floor with a soft thunk. “Take me home. Down a country road. Um, wha’ about my car?”

  “I’ll send a couple of guys out in a cruiser. They’ll leave it at the lookout near your land.” He added sarcastically, “Beautiful view from there. There’s nothing finer than the
Blue Ridge Mountains.”

  Cutt eased his lanky frame over to the passenger side. He bumped into the computer monitor fastened to the lower part of the dash and it came to life. Not focusing too well, he peered at the glowing screen and the map displayed on it. “Looky there,” he said. “A GPS program. No icon. Did the suspect find it?”

  “That case is closed.”

  The chief barely looked at Cutt as he slid behind the wheel. But he didn’t like what he saw. The man’s eyes were damn near going in circles. He wasn’t just drunk. Cutt’s mind was on the fritz and shorting out. Hoebel could almost hear the lethal buzz. It was time to end their association.

  CHAPTER 21

  Twelve hours later, Hoebel still had a headache. The struggle with Paul and the encounter with Cutt hadn’t done his blood pressure any good. The chief waited at the front door of the Montgomery house, shifting from foot to foot. The ponderous brass knocker felt heavy in his hand, and the sound it made echoed as if the house was empty. Someone had to be here. The old man had servants, and a girlfriend in residence.

  Not that he had ever met her.

  Hoebel frowned and knocked again, wincing. His swollen, scraped knuckles hurt every time he bent his fingers. Things had gotten physical with Cutt last night when he’d fired the man. The crazy bastard was cruising for a bruising. The younger man had been drunk, which gave Hoebel a narrow advantage. The chief got him in a headlock and explained why he should stay away from Erin Randall—explained with his fists. Enough said.

  An older woman in a housekeeper’s uniform finally answered, opening the door only a crack to look at him suspiciously.

  The chief raised a meaty hand and indicated his badge.

  Cutt had swung a few wild blows, landing one below the chief’s eye. His cheek hadn’t shown a bruise when Hoebel shaved early this morning. Maybe blood had pooled under the skin. Or maybe the lady in the uniform wasn’t impressed by a badge.

  “Good morning, ma’am. Sorry to bother you—I’m Police Chief Hoebel. I don’t think we’ve met. Is Mr. Montgomery in?”

  Her eyes widened. “Has something happened?”

  “Ah—I’d rather not say. Would it be possible to speak to him privately?” He anticipated her next question and answered it before her mouth opened to ask it. “No, he isn’t expecting me.”

  He was a little annoyed not to be asked in right away, but the housekeeper finally did. “Please come in. He hasn’t been well, but maybe he can see you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She indicated a chair in the foyer. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “No. I can’t stay long,” he said. A not-so-subtle hint that might make her walk a little faster.

  The housekeeper went to a grand staircase, going up and disappearing to somewhere on the second floor. A door opened on the floor he was on and he heard voices, both female, arguing heatedly.

  “Vernette, you must get him to take his medication.”

  “If he won’t, I can’t force him to. This is his house, not a nursing home.”

  A ladylike but youthful voice responded with a couple of choice curses. The other woman didn’t respond.

  Who was Vernette? He’d already guessed that the ladylike one was Montgomery’s girlfriend, Caroline. He’d written off a few DUIs for her daddy. Hamp Loudon regarded drinking and driving as his birthright, and he cursed a blue streak every time he got pulled over. Hoebel had read the police reports, thinking Hamp would be an easy shakedown, and he remembered them. He looked impatiently up the stairs to see if the housekeeper was returning.

  “The night nurse said you spoke to her about it, Ms. Loudon. We’re trying, that’s all I can say. But I can’t promise anything.”

  Hoebel mentally filled in the blanks. Vernette must be the private-duty nurse on the day shift. Was she in charge of the others? She sounded like it. So old Monty wouldn’t take his pills. No surprise. But if he kicked the bucket, Hoebel was going to be good and screwed.

  “Don’t you walk away when I’m talking to you!”

  More curses. Caroline Loudon was no lady. The housekeeper reappeared, frowning at the sound of the raised voices downstairs. She went very quickly down the stairs, only nodding to the chief as she went by him into a room he couldn’t see and closing the door that had been opened. Hoebel couldn’t really hear what she said in a very low voice, but the argument suddenly stopped.

  She came back, her face expressionless. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Mr. Montgomery says he’ll see you. His nurse should be with him, but—well, Mr. Montgomery prefers to speak to you alone. Please keep it to fifteen minutes if you can.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  She didn’t seem flattered by his politeness and he thought with a scowl that he shouldn’t have bothered.

  The housekeeper turned and led him up the stairs, to a room that seemed like a study. It held a big old desk with a computer on a stand next to it. A cabinet built into the wall was open, a key sticking out of a lock. The shelves behind the cabinet doors were in disarray, but Hoebel could see a wireless router inside, fully operational. Its little green lights were on, all in a row. Looked like it communicated with the laptop open on the sofa.

  The man who was sitting by it was barely recognizable as the fierce old guy that Hoebel was used to dealing with.

  Montgomery wore wrinkled striped pajamas and his hair was messy, as if he’d been running his hands through it. He made a move to get up but the housekeeper stopped him.

  “Please don’t, Mr. Montgomery. You need to rest. Chief Hoebel can only stay fifteen minutes.” She straightened and gave Hoebel a gimlet look of warning.

  “All right,” Montgomery said in a dull voice. “Where’s Vernette?”

  “She’s on her way upstairs.”

  The housekeeper began to walk out as Hoebel took the armchair opposite Montgomery.

  So this was what the aftermath of a stroke looked like. Ugly. And pathetic. He’d heard that the old guy had been doing fairly well after his release from the hospital. Montgomery must be on the verge of a relapse. His skin seemed as gray as his hair. Hoebel felt an uneasy prickle and belatedly recognized it as conscience.

  The hell with it. He had to get one last payoff from the old man, and it had to be big enough to go out with a bang. You couldn’t blackmail a dead man, and the kid hacker might decide to turn him in any time.

  “I know you’re not here to ask about my health. If you are, I feel like I’m dying. So talk,” Montgomery said in a monotone. He didn’t seem to be joking.

  Hoebel suppressed a smile. That sounded almost like the man he remembered.

  “Yes, sir.” Montgomery was easier to manage when you threw in a few sirs. “I’m sure you remember our arrangement. I’m here to collect what I’m owed.”

  “How much?”

  Gee whiz. The old man was still sharp as a tack. Hoebel named his price, adding, “Final payment.”

  Montgomery thought for a while.

  Hoebel stole a look at the laptop. A financial document of some kind was open on the screen—just by looking over Paul’s shoulder, he’d learned to recognize most documents that Montgomery used. This was the trust.

  He squinted hard at the line he was interested in. Ann Montgomery was still the beneficiary of the damn thing. A dead girl, on the mind of a dying man. For cryin’ out loud, he thought with disgust. He looked up, startled when Montgomery cleared his throat and spoke.

  “No. There’s no more money. It’s gone, Hoebel.”

  “But—”

  “I said it’s gone. All of it.” Exhaustion overcame him and Montgomery leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  Hoebel fumed. He’d come a little too late for that final payoff and now he was screwed. It wasn’t like he could rough up Montgomery. The housekeeper would hear, and whoever else was around to feed the old man strained bananas.

  And even if he used force, he hadn’t watched the hacker long enough to learn how to steal passcodes. If he knew how, he�
��d siphon the reward money in a heartbeat, the way he used to steal gas in high school. You had to suck it up just so. He’d have to try a different approach.

  “Okay. Sorry to hear that. By the way, I have something to tell you,” he said suddenly.

  “What?” Montgomery’s voice held no interest.

  “We found some remains. Our top guy says child’s bones. You know, small. Scattered. Looks like the animals got there first—well, never mind the details. The scatter area is close to your old house.”

  Not a bad lie considering he’d just made it up, Hoebel thought with twisted pride. It wasn’t likely Montgomery would remember all of it—but it was only intended to scare him. Now that Cutt and Paul were out of the lineup, the only thing the chief could do to get his last payoff was play mind games with this pathetic old man. There was a fat wad of cash sitting in a new bank, and as far as Hoebel was concerned, he had grabbing rights, considering how the two others had betrayed him. Without the hacker to do an electronic transfer, the chief was on his own.

  First step: Persuade the old man that the trust was pointless.

  Hoebel knew like he knew his own name that the kid had to be dead. He’d read the book on appropriate responses from authority figures. Parents wanted—what was the word? Closure. Okay, poor old Montgomery was going to get closure. He’d probably break down and cry. Next move: Manly understanding. Quiet sympathy. Moving right along to mutual trust. The rules were the same as any other confidence game. The stakes were high enough to almost make it fun.

  Montgomery sat up partway, breathing hard from the effort. “Is that true?”

  “Yes, sir. The forensic team is out there now.” He added a little more bogus information just in case Montgomery was thinking of taking a drive in his pajamas or having someone drive him. “They cordoned off the site.”

  The old man slumped and didn’t talk for a moment. “I don’t know why I keep hoping,” he said in a faint voice. He picked up the laptop at an odd angle, and it almost slid off his lap. He held on to it and hit a few keys with a wavering finger.