Mystery Writers of America Presents Vengeance

by Lee Child

  Bosch thought the latter. He thought that Diane Gables was a killer.

  “How do you pick them?” he asked.

  She turned directly toward him, her eyes locking on his.

  “Pick what?”

  Bosch paused, squeezing the most out of her stare and the moment.

  “The stocks you recommend to people,” he said.

  She broke her eyes away and looked at Edgar.

  “Due diligence,” she said. “Careful analysis and prognostication. Then, I have to say, I throw in my hunches. You gentlemen use hunches, don’t you?”

  “Every day,” Bosch said.

  THEY WERE SILENT for a while as they drove away. Bosch thought about the carefully worded answers Gables had given. He was feeling stronger about his hunch every minute.

  “What do you think?” Edgar finally asked.

  “I think it’s her.”

  “How can you say that? She didn’t make a single false move in there.”

  “Yes, she did. Her eyes gave her away.”

  “Oh, come on, Harry. You’re saying you know she’s a stone-cold killer because you can read it in her eyes?”

  “Pretty much. She also lied. She didn’t mention the case in 1999 because she thought we didn’t know about it. She didn’t want us going down that path, so she lied and said you were the only detective she’d ever met.”

  “At best, that’s a lie by omission. Weak, Harry.”

  “A lie is a lie. Nothing weak about it. She was hiding it from us and there’s only one reason to do that. I want to get inside her house. She’s gotta have a place where she studies and plans these things.”

  “So you think she’s a pro? A gun for hire?”

  “Maybe; I don’t know. Maybe she reads the paper and picks her targets, people she thinks need killing. Maybe she’s on some kind of vigilante trip. Dark justice and all of that.”

  “A regular angel of vengeance. Sounds like a comic book, man.”

  “If we get inside that place, we’ll know.”

  Edgar drove silently while he composed a response. Bosch knew what was coming before he said it.

  “Harry, I’m just not seeing it. I respect your hunch, man, I have seen that come through more than once. But there ain’t enough here. And if I don’t see it, then there’s no judge that’s going to give you a warrant to go back in there.”

  Bosch took his time answering. He was grinding things down, coming up with a plan.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he finally said.

  TWO DAYS LATER at 9:00 a.m., Bosch pulled up to Diane Gables’s house. The Range Rover was not in the driveway. He got out and went to the front door. After two loud knocks went unanswered he walked around the house to the back door.

  He knocked again. When there was no reply, he removed a set of lock picks that he kept behind his badge in his leather wallet and went to work on the dead bolt. It took him six minutes to open the door. He was greeted by the beeping of the burglar alarm. He located the box on the wall to the left of the back door and punched in the four numbers he had seen Gables enter at the front door two evenings before. The beeping stopped. Bosch was in. He left the door open and started looking around the house.

  It was a post–World War II ranch house. Bosch had been in a thousand of them over the years and all the investigations. After a quick survey of the entire house he started his search in a bedroom that had been converted to a home office. There was a desk and a row of file cabinets along the wall where a bed would have been. There was a line of windows over the cabinets.

  There was also a metal locker with a padlock on it. Bosch opened the venetian blinds over the file cabinets, and light came into the room. He moved to the metal locker and started there, pulling his picks out once again.

  He knelt on the floor so he could see the lock closely. It turned out to be a three-pin breeze, taking less than a minute for him to open. A moment after the hasp snapped free he heard a voice come from behind him.

  “Detective, don’t move.”

  Bosch froze for a moment. He recognized the voice. Diane Gables. She had known he would come back. He slowly started to raise his hands, holding his fingers close together so he could hide the picks between them.

  “Easy,” Gables commanded. “If you attempt to reach for your weapon I will put two bullets into your skull. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Can I stand up? My knees aren’t what they once were.”

  “Slowly. Your hands always in my sight line.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Bosch started to get up slowly, turning toward her at the same time. She was pointing a handgun with a suppressor attached to the barrel.

  “Easy,” he said. “Just take it easy here.”

  “No, you take it easy. I could shoot you where you stand and be within my rights.”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “No, that’s not true. You know I’m a cop.”

  “Yeah, a rogue cop. What did you think you were going to find here?”

  “Evidence.”

  “Of what?”

  “Randolph and McIntyre. Maybe others. You killed them.”

  “And, what, you thought I’d just keep the evidence around? Hide it in a locker in my home?”

  “Something like that. Can I sit down?”

  “The chair behind the desk. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Bosch slowly sat down. She was still standing in the doorway. He now had 60 percent of his body shielded by the desk. He had his back to the file cabinets. The light was coming in from behind and above him. He noticed she had now lowered the muzzle to point at his chest. This was good, though from this range he doubted the Kevlar would completely stop a bullet from a nine-millimeter, even with the suppressor slowing it down. He kept his hands up and close to his face.

  “So now what?” he asked.

  “So now you tell me what you think you’ve got on me.”

  Bosch shook his head as if to say Not much. “You lied. The other day. You didn’t mention the McIntyre case. You didn’t want us linking the cases through you. The trouble is we already had.”

  “And that’s it? Are you kidding me?”

  “That’s it. Till now.”

  He nodded at her weapon. It seemed to confirm all hunches.

  “So, without a real case and the search warrant to go with it, of course you decided to break in here to see what you could find.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “We have a problem, Detective Bosch.”

  “No, you have the problem. You’re a killer and I’m onto you. Put the weapon down. You’re under arrest.”

  She laughed and waggled the gun in her hand.

  “You forget one thing. I have the gun.”

  “But you won’t use it. You don’t kill people like me. You kill the abusers, the predators.”

  “I could make an exception. You’ve broken the law by breaking in here. There are no gray areas. Who knows, maybe you came to plant evidence here, not find it. Maybe you are like them.”

  Bosch started lowering his hands to the desktop.

  “Be careful, Detective.”

  “I’m tired of holding them up. And I know you’re not going to shoot me. It’s not part of your program.”

  “I told you, programs change.”

  “How do you pick them?”

  She stared at him a long time, then finally answered.

  “They pick themselves. They deserve what they get.”

  “No judge, no jury. Just you.”

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t wished you could do the same thing.”

  “Sure, on occasion. But there are rules. We don’t live by them, then where does it all go?”

  “Right here, I guess. What am I going to do about you?”

  “Nothing. You kill me and you know it’s over. You’ll be like one of them—the abusers and the predators. Put the gun down.”

  She took two steps into the room. The muzzle came up toward his face. B
osch saw that deadly black eye rising in slow motion.

  “You’re wearing a vest, aren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “I could see it in your eyes. The fear comes up when the gun comes up.”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “I’m not afraid. You won’t shoot me.”

  “I still see fear.”

  “Not for me. It’s for you. How many have there been?”

  She paused, maybe to decide what to tell him, or maybe just to decide what to do. Or maybe she was stuck on his answer about the fear.

  “More than you’ll ever know. More than anybody will ever know. Look, I’m sorry, you know?”

  “About what?”

  “About there being only one real way out of this. For me.”

  The muzzle steadied, its aim at his eyes.

  “Before you pull that trigger, can I show you something?”

  “It won’t matter.”

  “I think it will. It’s in my inside jacket pocket.”

  She frowned, then made a signal with the gun.

  “Show me your wrists. Where’s your watch?”

  Bosch raised his hands and his jacket sleeves came down, showing his watch on his right wrist. He was left-handed.

  “Okay, take out whatever it is you need to show me with your right hand. Slowly, Detective, slowly.”

  “You got it.”

  Bosch reached in and with great deliberation pulled out the folded document. He handed it across the desk to her.

  “Just put it down and then lean away.”

  He followed her instructions. She waited for him to move back and then picked up the document. With one hand she unfolded it and took a glance, taking her eyes off Bosch for no more than a millisecond.

  “I’m not going to be able to read it. What is it?”

  “It’s a no-knock search warrant. I have broken no law by being here. I’m not one of them.”

  She stared at him for a silent thirty seconds and then finally smirked.

  “You have to be kidding me. What judge would sign such a search warrant? You had zero probable cause.”

  “I had your lies and your proximity to two murders. And I had Judge Oscar Ortiz—you remember him?”

  “Who is he?”

  “Back in 1999 he had the McIntyre case. But you took it away from him when you executed McIntyre. Getting him to sign this search warrant wasn’t hard once I reminded him about the case.”

  Anger worked into her face. The muzzle started to come up again.

  “All I have to say is one word,” Bosch said. “A one-syllable word.”

  “And what?”

  “And you’re dead.”

  She froze, and slowly her eyes rose from Bosch’s face to the windows over the file cabinets.

  “You opened the blinds,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  Bosch studied the two red laser dots that had played on her face since she had entered the room, one high on her forehead, the other on her chin. Bosch knew that the lasers did not account for bullet drop, but the SWAT sharpshooters on the roof of the house across the street did. The chin dot was the heart shot.

  Gables seemed frozen, unable to choose whether to live or die.

  “There’s a lot you could tell us,” he said. “We could learn from you. Why don’t you just put the gun down and we can get started.”

  He slowly started to lean forward, raising his left hand to take the gun.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  She brought the muzzle up but he didn’t say the word. He didn’t think she’d shoot.

  There were three sounds in immediate succession: The breaking of glass as the bullet passed through the window. A sound like an ice cream cone dropping on the sidewalk as the bullet passed through her chest. And then the thock of the slug hitting the door frame behind her.

  A fine mist of blood started to fill the room.

  Gables took a step backward and looked down at her chest as her arms dropped to her sides. The gun made a dull sound when it hit the carpet.

  She glanced up at Bosch with a confused look. In a strained voice she asked her last question.

  “What was the word?”

  She then dropped to the floor.

  Staying below the level of the file cabinets, Bosch left the desk and came around to her on the floor. He slid the gun out of reach and looked down at her eyes. He knew there was nothing he could do. The bullet had exploded her heart.

  “You bastards!” he yelled. “I didn’t say it! I didn’t say the word!”

  Gables closed her eyes and Bosch thought she was gone.

  “We’re clear!” he said. “Suspect is ten-seven. Repeat, suspect is ten-seven. Weapons, stand down.”

  He started to get up but saw that Gables had opened her eyes.

  “Nine,” she whispered, blood coming up on her lips.

  Bosch leaned down to her.

  “What?”

  “I killed nine.”

  She nodded and then closed her eyes again. He knew that this time she was gone, but he nodded anyway.

  LEVERAGE

  BY MIKE COOPER

  I was counting on that pension.” Joe Beeker looked up from his hands, knuckled together in his lap. “I need the money.”

  “We all need money,” said the lawyer. He was younger than Joe, but so was everyone nowadays. He clacked at the silver laptop sitting open on his desk. “Doesn’t mean they have to give it to you. The bankruptcy wiped out their obligations.”

  “I worked there thirty-seven years.” And Joe knew he was marked from those decades: scarred fingers; flash burns on his arms; a small, weathered scar right under one eye. “On the line, mostly, and maintenance. Overtime every single week. You could look up my pay stubs.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The office was small and undecorated, its window open to the parking lot off Mill Street. Humid summer air coming through the window oppressed the room rather than cooling it.

  “I’ll lose the house,” said Joe softly.

  “You’ll get Social Security.” The lawyer was trying to be helpful, Joe knew that. The youngster’s tie was still snug at his throat, even if he’d rolled his cuffs back in the heat. He studied the computer screen for a moment. “And it looks like you’ve been at the same address for nearly four decades. Surely the mortgage is paid off by now?”

  “We bought in 1972. Right after I got out of the service, with a VA loan. Marjo loved that house.”

  “And property taxes are certainly low around here.”

  “I had to take another mortgage.” Joe looked away from the lawyer’s disappointed sigh. “When Marjo got the cancer.”

  “Oh.” The lawyer’s sigh turned into a cough. “Insurance?”

  “It wasn’t enough.” Joe shook his head. “I’m not complaining. She needed the nurse at home all those months. And the hospice. That’s okay.”

  “I don’t see anything in the file.”

  “She…” Joe felt his voice trail away. “Three weeks ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” the lawyer said again. The fourth time since Joe had sat down.

  “At least she didn’t have to see me laid off. That would have killed her—” Joe stopped abruptly. “Never mind.”

  “Do your children…?”

  “We never had any.” Another old wound.

  “Oh.” The lawyer fussed a moment, then changed the subject. “The company’s new owners are rehiring, I’m told.”

  “New owners?” For the first time, Joe couldn’t keep his anger stopped up. “New owners? It’s the same bastards, far as I can tell. They bought the company cheap, busted every single contract, sold off the inventory—and now they’re starting up again. Yeah, they’re rehiring. That’s right. You know what they’re paying? Six-fifty-three an hour. That’s only one dollar more than I started at in 1974!”

  “It’s not quite that simple—”

  “And you know what? I might have to take it, if I don’t get the pens
ion. I might have to take that fucking slop-hauler’s wage, even though it’s one-fourth what I was making a month ago, because I need to eat. I’m going to lose the house, probably get a boarding room over in Railton, listen to the bikers gunning their engines all night. But I need to fucking eat.”

  “I understand how you feel.”

  “No, you don’t.” But Joe’s anger drained away. “That’s okay.”

  “At least you can get unemployment during the layoff, if you’re not applying for early SSA.”

  “They owe me the pension.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “And it’s not even—you know how much I’m due? Thirty-seven years, paying in every single week? All I’m supposed to get is eighteen thousand dollars a year. Barely fifteen hundred a month. These new owners”—Joe heard his voice coarsen—“eighteen grand, they probably lose that at the cleaners. Loose change in their pants.”

  “Everything they did was completely legal.”

  “Legal.” Joe slumped back in his chair.

  “Believe me, if there was any possibility for a claim, I’d have filed already. Class action, in every jurisdiction Valiant has so much as driven his Lamborghini through.” The lawyer seemed to have some anger of his own stored away. “But they’ve got two-thousand-dollar-an-hour attorneys out of Washington negotiating these deals and writing the agreements. It’s bulletproof like plate armor. We can’t touch them.”

  “Okay, it’s legal.” Joe looked out the window, at the late-afternoon sun and, far in the distance, a low line of clouds. “But it’s not right.”

  TWO WEEKS LATER, midmorning. Dim inside the community room with the lights off, but dog-day heat shimmered outside the windows. An air conditioner rattled and dripped, not doing much.

  A dozen men and two women sat on metal folding chairs, filling a third of the room. The Rotary was coming in later, and their dusty flag stood in one corner. No one could hear the projected video very well, not over the air conditioner, and the facilitator had closed her eyes, fanning her face with the same copy of “Writing a Killer Résumé!” that was on everyone’s lap.

  “I still don’t understand how they did it,” Stokey said in a low voice to Joe. They’d taken seats in the rear. Long-forgotten memories: grade-school desks, ducking the teacher’s eye, daydreaming.