Dead and Gone (A Thriller)

by William Casey Moreton

  “What convinced Ellen that Terry was not her father?” I asked.

  “There were several things but none of that matters anymore.”

  “Terry didn’t go to Harvard,” I said.

  “I’m aware of that, but Ellen couldn’t confirm that until recently.”

  “The killer had to have lived in or around Boston at the time of the murder. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Terry’s background is no big secret.”

  Whitney fell silent for a beat. She lifted her hand from my shoulder and placed both hands in her lap. Then she said, “There are things about Terry’s background that you are likely unaware of.”

  “Maybe, but not much.”

  “Did you know he was adopted?”

  No. The answer to that question is a big, fat NO. No, I did not know that my best friend, who had died two days ago in a freak accident in his own home, had been adopted. I was struck by the sudden impulse to reach into my back pocket to check my ID and make sure that I was indeed Nick Cortland, because I was almost certainly living someone else’s life, or at the very least having an out of body experience.

  “Adopted?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re insane. Terry was the spitting image of his father.”

  “Have you ever seen those people who start to look like their pets? I live down the street from an old lady who looks exactly like her Poodle. It’s scary. So tell me, what did Terry’s father look like? Hair color? Height? You know, the basics.”

  “His father’s name was Saul, and he was about six-one and was mostly bald by the time I was hired at the agency. Terry was sandy blonde and about the same height.”

  “So both men were close to six foot with blondish hair?”

  “Yes. Father and son.”

  “Eye color?”

  “Terry had blue, I think. Guys don’t tend to notice that like women. I have no idea about Saul.”

  “Saul Burgess had brown eyes.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll take your word for it. What’s your point?”

  “Throw a rock at any street corner in this city and you’ll hit someone matching their description.”

  “Have you seen pictures of them together?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “And?”

  “We see what we want to see. If you choose to see a father with his son, presto, you will see the resemblance. If you choose to see two unrelated men, the resemblance will vanish. It’s human nature.”

  I buzzed down my window about six inches to get a blast of fresh air. The sounds of the city immediately washed in. I smelled pizza and suddenly realized how hungry I was. My stomach started making familiar noises, but no matter how hungry my body might be, I currently had no appetite.

  I started the car and crossed through an intersection, feeling present in my body again but still no less stunned by the revelations of the past few minutes. I had to slow for construction and we were rerouted, which wasted an extra ten minutes but allowed Whitney to fill in a few more gaps.

  “We know Terry went to Yale, but his adopted family lived in New York City and raised him here,” she said.

  “The murder happened in Cambridge, Massachusetts,” I said, interrupting, “so how did you ever make any sort of connection to him?”

  “I met a guy Katie was dating. I remember him clearly because he was the type that makes a lasting impression. Real type A personality. A go-getter. It was very obvious he planned to go into politics. It was written all over him. No doubt about it. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. And he was aggressive. Very sexually charged, but he didn’t want to be seen with Katie, so they would either get a room for the night or the weekend, or he would crash at Katie’s place, have sex, and then he would disappear until he got horny again. He really used her. It was awful.”

  “Why did she put up with it?”

  “It went with the territory. Those kind of guys were drawn like flies to the business we were in.”

  “I think it’s time you tell me what kind of work you and Katie were involved in,” I said.

  Again she grew quiet and withdrew.

  I didn’t press.

  I parked two blocks from the club and I asked if she wanted to go in with me.

  “We were strippers,” she said, barely above a whisper.

  I nodded. “OK. So?”

  “The money was great. The hours were great, and it provided a better lifestyle than I could have afforded otherwise, but I’m not proud of it.”

  “You certainly aren’t the first stripper I’ve met.”

  “That’s rude.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Anyway, that’s where she met him. He was a big tipper and she found him attractive enough to agree to a date. He wasn’t interested in dates. He just wanted sex. I believe at some point he slipped one past the goalie.”

  “But Terry wasn’t the guy?”

  “No,” she said, with a tone of defeat.

  I pushed open my door. “Wait here,” I said. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” she said. “I’m in no mood to sit and wait.”

  Dusk was more or less what I might have expected. A metal door opened into a long hallway. The light was low. I held the door for her and she met my eye and immediately reached for my hand. The hallway led past a series of closed doors and finally to a flight of stairs. We took the stairs. At the bottom a deep room opened up, and again the light was low. Techno music pulsed in the background. The place was empty except for a man in a tight black tank working behind the bar. He was a black kid with a design shaved into both sides of his hairstyle. My “gaydar” has always been low on batteries, but my spider senses alerted me straightaway that he was as gay as the night is long.

  “Closed,” he said the instant his eyes found me. “Come back when you see the moon.”

  I stood at the bar and produced my iPhone. “I only want to ask a question,” I said.

  “I’ll answer when you buy a drink tonight.”

  “I won’t be back tonight.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said. “You are my type.”

  “What is your type exactly?” I asked and had no idea why.

  “You have a pulse.”

  Nice. I suddenly had the desire for a chemical bath.

  I put a twenty on the bar.

  “Just a quick question,” I said.

  He ignored the cash. “I hope that president has a brother, because by himself he’ll only buy you half an answer.” He grinned and batted his eyelashes at me.

  I laid down a matching twenty and opened the photo library on my cell. I flashed the still photo of the young man who had taken the elevator up with Terry.

  “Ever seen this kid before?” I asked.

  The bartender was polishing a glass but paused to squint at the pic.

  “Hard to tell from that,” he said. He went immediately back to his task so I reluctantly added another twenty to the pot.

  “That’s sixty and I’m dry,” I told him.

  “Yeah, I recognize him,” he said, a gold tooth winking in the light. “Don’t know the name but he’s in here several nights a week.”

  “Does he come alone?”

  “Usually, but usually doesn’t leave alone. He’s popular with the older crowd.”

  “Good to know,” I said, when what I meant was TMI.

  “Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “Not that I know of, but I’d like to talk to him.”

  I grabbed a napkin from the bar and wrote my cell number on it.

  “Would you mind giving me a call the next time you see him?”

  He eyeballed the napkin, then flashed the gold tooth again.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Nick.” I knew instantly I should have lied.

  “Sure, Nick. I’ll call you, or you could just hang out with me until your little crush shows up.”

  I glanced at Whitney. She
was struggling to suppress a smile. I frowned at her.

  “I’ll wait for the call,” I told him.

  “My name is Perez,” he said. I could see the shimmer of glitter on his face and traces of eye shadow.

  “Thanks for the assist, Perez.”

  “My pleasure, Nick. Come back and see me again sometime.”

  CHAPTER 24

  It was never a simple thing to dispose of a body. There was always a certain amount of labor involved and you had to be careful not to be seen by the wrong set of eyes. Santiago came prepared. In one hand he carried several big green garbage bags, and in the other he had a handsaw. The plan was to put a bullet in Ellen Ingram’s head, then use the saw to dismember her, stuff her remains into the bags, and haul the bags to a construction site for burial.

  It would be bloody work but Santiago didn’t mind. He was demented enough to get a thrill out of this type of gruesome chore. As he came down the hall from Carolla’s office a smile stretched across his face in anticipation of taking her apart one piece at a time. He was a sick man. Well, sick didn’t begin to do him justice. He was a special breed of psychopath. Growing up in the streets he had peddled drugs and worked as an enforcer for the dealers. His first education in killing had been with crude weapons. For his first kill he had crushed a young boy’s skull with a rock the size of a cantaloupe. Santiago could remember sitting in the red dirt watching the boy twitch. Then he graduated to sharpened metal shivs and knives, until finally he earned his first gun.

  He was dressed in a black T-shirt and his signature pointy-toed cowboy boots. The T-shirt had a white skull printed on the front. The skull was grinning.

  Carolla had sent him to do the job alone. Carolla had no desire to watch the Mexican saw the girl to pieces.

  Santiago reached the cooler and shifted the garbage bags and the saw into the same hand so that he could open the door. He pulled the handle but the door was stuck. He dropped the stuff to the floor so he could use both hands. He heaved as hard as he could but the door wouldn’t give.

  His simple reptile brain was perplexed and he grunted. He shook the handle. The door was firm. He hooked his fingers along the edge and tried to pry it open but it wouldn’t budge more than a fraction of an inch. Then he took a step back and grunted again. He left the saw and the lawn bags on the floor and went down the hall to find Carolla.

  * * *

  Ellen heard someone at the cooler door. The chain pulled tight. She gasped, her breath fogging. She tucked her legs beneath her, as if she could hide. The chain rattled against the metal rack. Then everything was quiet again, but she didn’t relax because she knew they would be back again very soon.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later Santiago returned with Carolla. Santiago gestured at the door.

  “Won’t open,” Santiago grunted like a caveman.

  Carolla stepped forward and grabbed for the latch handle to the cooler door. His hand was a quarter the size of one of Santiago’s beefy mitts and nearly all bone. He tugged at the handle and heard it click. Carolla glanced over his shoulder at the Mexican, then swung his eyes back to the door and gave it another tug.

  “What did she do to this thing?” Carolla asked.

  Santiago shrugged.

  “It locks from the inside,” Carolla said. “She’s got it hung up on something. Give me a hand with this.”

  Santiago stood next to him and together they hooked their fingers along the inside edge of the door and strained to force it open. No go. The door wouldn’t budge more than an inch.

  Carolla was red in the face, partly from exertion and partly from the anger that was beginning to rise inside of him. He leaned forward and put his mouth to the gap in the door.

  “Give it up, Ellen,” he hissed. “Your little trick isn’t going to work. All you’re doing is wasting time. Open this damn door and let us get this over with. There’s nothing you can do to stop us. No one knows you’re here and there’s no way out of there. So just come on out and put yourself out of your misery.”

  Carolla turned his ear to listen but there was no response. He leaned away and threaded his fingers together, cracking his knuckles. Then he barked an order at the Mexican.

  “Get a torch,” he said. “We will cut the door off.”

  “Too thick,” Santiago replied.

  “Cut the hinges.”

  Santiago shrugged. “Can try, I guess.”

  Carolla took out his cell phone and called Barry Blackwell.

  “What do you want?” Blackwell grumbled.

  “The Ingram woman has barricaded herself in the cooler where we are keeping her. It may take a while to cut her out. Santiago is going to work on the door with a blow torch, but there are no guarantees.”

  “Why are you bothering me with this? As long as there is no way out of that cooler, I don’t care how long it takes. Just get it done or keep her in there until she freezes to death. Either way is fine with me.” Blackwell abruptly ended the call without waiting for a reply from Carolla.

  Carolla stared at his cell phone for a beat before shoving it back into his pocket.

  “What did he say?” Santiago asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Carolla replied cooly. “Just get the torch and get to work.”

  Santiago shrugged. “OK. What about you?”

  “I’ll be out in the warehouse doing my real job. Call me when you have her out, but don’t bother me until then.”

  Carolla marched away and took the stairs down to the warehouse.

  Santiago tested the door again, his massive biceps bulging inside his tight T-shirt and jacket. He could hear a chain rattling against the inside of the door. He leveraged the door open as far as he could — less than two inches — and then flattened his hands to squeeze them through the gap between the door and the wall. He managed to get them in up to his wrists. He was squirreling them around, trying to see if he could feel what has holding the door shut. Suddenly, immense pain shot up both arms and it felt like every bone in both hands was broken. He jerked his hands out and jumped back. There was no blood but his hands were throbbing. He stared at the door and began to growl. She had hit him with something. He couldn’t wait to cut her out and slice her into small pieces.

  * * *

  Ellen waited and listened. She stood breathlessly in the chill of the room, heart thundering in her chest. She held a wooden slat from a broken pallet, grasping it with both hands. She had watched as the Mexican put his fingers through the gap in the door and then had struck them as hard as she could. She heard him curse at her in Spanish and had waited for the door to be blown off its hinges by some kind of explosive, but nothing had happened, at least not in the last few minutes. There were no more voices and no more sounds coming from outside the door.

  She wondered where they had gone and what they were doing. She knew they would be back soon and now they were mad.

  She dropped the wooden slat to the floor and stood trembling, staring at the door without blinking for what seemed like an hour but was really only a couple of minutes. Then she noticed something that made her heart beat even faster: they had left the door unlocked.

  She hesitated, shivering, afraid to approach, afraid the Mexican might be waiting right outside to grab hold of her the instant she got close enough. Then she steeled her nerves enough to inch forward and peer through the gap where the door stood open an inch. She put her eye to the opening and saw there was no one outside.

  How long would they be gone, and how long before they realized they had left the door unlocked? Whether it was a minute or five minutes, it was all she had and she had to take advantage of it or she would be dead.

  With trembling hands she wrestled the chain loose from around the huge metal rack and flung it to the floor. Then she heaved against the rack until she was able to move it a few feet to one side. She eased the door open, light from outside falling across her face, and jutted her head into the hallway. There was no sign of anyone. She couldn’t believe her good f
ortune. This was her moment, her only chance.

  Ellen squeezed through the narrow opening. A strip of florescent lights flickered overhead. She could hear distant sounds of machinery through the walls. Then she heard a door shut somewhere down the hall and suddenly footsteps were heading in her direction. Her heart jumped into her throat. Time had run out.

  She turned and ran.

  CHAPTER 25

  It was a long walk back to the car. We didn’t talk much. There was a lot to think about. I took her to my apartment and poured her something to drink. She walked around looking at stuff and seemed sufficiently impressed.

  “Ellen enjoyed staying here. She has described everything in detail. I recognize everything just from her stories, so I feel like I’ve already been here before. She really is crazy about you,” Whitney said.

  “Good to know,” I said, very uninterested anymore in Ellen’s feelings for me. I now felt enough hurt and betrayal in my heart to last a few decades. Glancing around, remembering the days and nights we’d spent alone in my place, the memories now felt more like needle pricks in the pit of my stomach. Part of me was ready to move on but the pain was still too raw. It would take time to process through it all and properly deal with it.

  “She also showed me photos on her cell phone,” Whitney told me. “So I actually have seen some of this, though it’s always different being in a place and seeing it with your own eyes. Nice place, Nick.”

  I didn’t reply. I handed her a glass. She carried the drink as she wandered about, studying my art and looking at framed photos I had sitting around. I watched her peruse my decor. This woman was a stranger who had popped into my life basically five minutes ago and I realized that I was already investing a lot of trust in her. I wanted to believe her, but also had to respect my built-in reflex to proceed with caution.