Code Name: Crescent: A Matt Preston Novel

by Paul Shadinger

  “Did you find out why she was hiding?”

  “She had been threatened. She dated a guy who she says raped her. Depending on who I talked to, she told some people it was an attempted rape and to others she said actually happened. Kim told me and a nurse she was raped.” Krista frowned. “Kim decided to try and do something about it by going to the school board of regents. The problem is, or was, the guy’s Bud Cox.”

  “Sorry to interrupt again, when you say Bud Cox, do you mean the star running back over at the U? The kid who was shot?”

  “Yeah.”

  Krista closed her eyes for a moment. I got the feeling she finally understood why Albert had dumped this case in her lap. She knew why the firm didn’t want to be anywhere near to the killing of somebody as famous as Cox. Eventually she opened her eyes and smiled at me, though I felt the smile was a bit forced. “Please continue, Matt.”

  “Kim told me when Cox found out she was trying to do something about the attempted rape, or rape, Cox or one of his buddies, called her and told her if she didn’t drop things, she was going to be in a world of hurt, as they put it. I found where she was hiding. She told me all of this and I moved her to a better hiding place. For one thing, I was concerned with her mental well being since she told me she was actually raped.”

  “Where did you move her to?”

  “I have a very good friend who is the head ER nurse at one of the hospitals up on Pill Hill. I own a houseboat she rents from me and I felt it was a safe place, as well as having my nurse friend there to talk to Kim about it.”

  “Okay, I understand. Then what did you do?”

  “I went looking for Cox, and I found him. Or should I say, he found me at the restaurant where I was having dinner. We argued and he left. Later in the parking lot, he’s dead, I’m in a daze, and the police find me with the gun. I’m telling you, I didn’t shoot him. Somebody hit me on the back of my head as I was walking to my truck, and when I woke up I had the gun in my hand and Cox’s body was lying next to me. I did not shoot him.”

  “When you were tested, they found powder residue on your hand. How do you think you got that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It appears the gun that was used to kill him was registered to you. Do you always carry a weapon?”

  “I have a license to carry. I usually keep a pistol in my truck.”

  “Why?”

  I paused. That was a good question. Why did I carry a gun with me? I had one stashed at my apartment, too. I always thought that because of my time in the service, I felt more comfortable knowing there was one handy. “To be honest, I can’t really give you a good reason. I just feel more comfortable having one.”

  “The gun the police found you with, was that the same one you used up on Ross Island?”

  For some reason that question made my blood run cold. I wanted Ross Island to go away. But it seemed like every time I turned around, it was coming back into my life. I knew I didn’t regret what I did to Hollis, but I sure wished I had used a different gun than the one in my truck. I nodded at her question.

  Krista took off her glasses again and placed them on the stack of papers once more. The way she leaned back in her chair, I could tell she was working her way up to asking me her question. She took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. “Matt, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. But you’re on the record as admitting to the killing of one man. And now you’ve been accused of killing another man, and with the same gun. Do you see why someone might be inclined to write you off as just a violent man?”

  “Well, they’d be wrong. I know a lot of ways to end a person’s life, but I don’t use them. I know I have the ability to protect myself, but I don’t go around looking for fights. Actually I’m a very quiet person.”

  “A quiet person who goes around shooting defenseless people up in old lighthouse towers?”

  “It’s not like he was unarmed. How do you think I ended up with a bullet in my thigh?”

  “Let’s see…” Krista put her glasses on, started flipping through the papers in front of her and then found what she was looking for. She looked at me over the top of her glasses. “The man in the tower had gunshot wounds to both of his feet, his chest, and he had a bullet between his eyes. That’s not really the act of a quiet person, Mr. Preston.” I had moved backwards. I was now Mr. instead of Matt.

  “The reason I bring all of this up is because the prosecutor is going to bring it up as well.” She held up her fist and as she made a point, Krista would lift one finger. “The prosecutor will try and show you have a history of violent behavior. He will then bring up how you found the young man who allegedly tried to rape Kim Tate. Two bullets are missing from the gun you had in your truck, where the young man was killed. You’re found next to his dead body, with a gun. You have powder residue on your hand. Several people saw the two of you argue to the point where the cops say the owner of the restaurant had to break up a fight between the two of you.” By now she had all her fingers in the air. “You have to admit things do not look good as far as your defense is concerned.”

  This was not going well for me. I was caught in quicksand and the more I tried to move, the faster I was being sucked in. I knew this woman was here to help me, but it seemed like she was helping build the case against me. “Ms. Sellers, I’m telling you I did not shoot Bud Cox. I was angry with him, yes. I’ll not deny that.

  “As for Mac breaking up the fight, he only picked up a baseball bat in case the disagreement got out of hand. He did not break up any fight. Yes, I told Cox to stay away from Kim Tate. But I didn’t shoot him. Somebody else shot Cox, somebody who broke into my truck and used my gun.”

  Krista sat for a long time now, seemingly focused on a spot high on the wall behind me. When she took off her glasses again she sighed and then placed them on the stack of papers, looked at me and sighed again. “Tomorrow, at arraignment, we’ll plead not guilty. I assume that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course!” I almost shouted. I knew I didn’t shoot the creep, but the problem was, I couldn’t prove it. And the worst part was sitting in jail was not going to help me prove I didn’t do it. “Will you be able to get me out on bail?”

  “To be honest, I doubt it. I’ll try, but I doubt it.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” I silently swore to myself, if I ever got out of this situation I was going to have a real chat with Bill Tate. I also promised myself I would never be seduced into helping anybody again… even if they were a world famous basketball star.

  CHAPTER 15

  SAKOL

  I knew my time with Krista was over when she stood and called for Frank, the guard. I had to admit I didn’t feel very good about the way things were turning out. It was nothing Krista had said, it was just the way the conversation had gone. I didn’t feel very confident I was ever going to see the outside world again. I was afraid that even if Krista was the best lawyer ever, her chances of getting me off were no better than my chances of spending a week on a Hawaiian Island with a supermodel… which were way below zero. I had gotten myself in deep trouble and Krista had a real uphill fight to get me out. I tried not to show her how depressed I was with the way our interview had gone, but I sensed she knew I was really in the dumps. When she stretched out her hand to shake mine goodbye, she took my hand in both of hers and smiled. “I won’t tell you not to worry, but I believe you. I will do my very best to get you off because I do believe you are innocent. I really think it will all work out in the end.” Her telling me she believed me meant a lot.

  When the door to our little room was opened, I saw two guards standing there. Much to my surprise, one guard appeared to be accompanying Sakol. Krista smiled at my old friend and exclaimed, “Sakol, good afternoon. It’s been a long time. How have you been?”

  Sakol smiled at the warm greeting, his round face glowing. “Hello Ms. Seller. Nice se
e you again.”

  Krista took his hand as she asked, “Why are you here?”

  “Matt friend. Want talk.” Sakol bowed towards the barrister.

  She turned and looked at me. “Do you want me to stay? You know whatever you tell him can be used against you at your trial.”

  Without going into a lot of detail about Sakol and myself, I just told her, “There’s nothing I can’t or won’t say in front of Sakol. We go a long way back.”

  Krista didn’t look very happy that she was being dismissed, but she smiled, held out her hand to me again and said, “Okay, then, I’ll see you tomorrow at the courthouse. I’ll be there thirty minutes beforehand to go over a few things with you.”

  I smiled, and she left. I motioned to Sakol to take a seat as I said, “Before we start, is somebody taking care of Bean?”

  “Sharon has dog with her. No worry.”

  “Okay. Now, what brings you to my office?”

  He smiled at my feeble joke. “Just left truck. First, hold up hands.”

  I looked at him strangely but complied. He motioned for me to turn my hands around so he could see both sides. He smiled at me and started talking, “Two things not right—”

  I interrupted, “Shit, Sakol, there are more than just two things that aren’t right.”

  He held up his hand to silence me. “Okay. Two things with truck not right.”

  “Like?” Getting information out of Sakol was like pulling teeth.

  “Find blood on passenger door and blood on passenger seat. It not yours, not Cox. What you know about it?”

  “Sakol, I know about the Charlie Chan thing you do. For right now can we drop it?”

  Sakol smiled up at me with a sheepish grin. “Sorry about that. It’s become so much a part of me I forget I’m doing it. My wife won’t allow me to talk like that at home.”

  Married! Sakol married? I know we had never really talked about his life away from his job, but this was the first time he had even mentioned he was married. I knew the dancers at Robbie’s adored him and his cute way of talking, but I just thought he was a bachelor and lived the life. Now I find out he’s married. Damn! I shuddered to think what I might find out about him next.

  Sakol’s face turned serious. “Do you have any idea where the blood in your truck came from? There’s part of a palm print, a thumb and two fingers on the seat. It looks like it was the left hand. I see that you don’t have any cuts on either of your hands. Also there’s blood several places on the windowsill. It appears whoever broke into your truck cut themselves on the glass.”

  “No, sorry, I have no idea about the blood. I assume you ran it thought your databanks and came up with nothing?”

  “Yep. We just know it is not yours or Cox’s.”

  We sat for a moment, both of us lost in our thoughts. I had an idea and I asked, “I’ve seen a video monitor at the cashier’s stand at the garage. Have you checked the videos?”

  Sakol replied, “Yes. We checked. The problem is there are only two cameras and both of them are aimed on the booth to catch people who try to rob the attendant. There’s nothing on the floor where you parked.”

  I hung my head. This was not going well at all. “The blood on the door?”

  “Yes?”

  “Doesn’t that count for anything? I mean, obviously somebody broke into the truck. All of the glass on the ground and all. Why would I break into my own truck? Also, strange blood in my truck. Isn’t it obvious someone broke into my truck and stole my pistol?”

  Sakol held out his hands, palms up. “I agree with you Matt. But what that means in a court of law has to be decided in court, not by you and me. The simple fact is you had gunpowder residue on your hand when they checked you. The bullets were fired from your gun.”

  “What about the medical report that shows I had been struck in the back of the head. What about that?”

  “Again Matt, that has to be decided in court. That’s if the DA feels he has enough to take it to court. All I can say is Jeff and I are trying our best to see what we can do. Neither of us believes you had anything to do with the shooting. But it isn’t up to us to make that decision.”

  “I understand. And for what it’s worth, I appreciate you being on my side.” Sakol smiled at me and it did make me feel better to know I had the two of them in my corner.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  There’s not a lot to do when you’re in jail besides lie there and think. And trying to keep your mind away from all the bad places it can go when you’re sitting in a jail cell is very difficult. Once more I was on the bunk in my cell when I heard the now familiar sound of the electronically controlled steel door at the end of the corridor scraping open. For a brief second I wondered if putting some WD-40 on it might help, but I wasn’t in jail to help them fix their noisy doors.

  It was difficult to tell how much time had passed since I had seen Krista. I didn’t have a watch and I couldn’t see outside. Hearing the door open, I wondered if somebody was coming to visit me and I sat up on my bunk. I heard the familiar scratch of radio transmission and then the guard’s voice. “Preston? Yeah, we’re getting him now. He’ll be there in a minute.” Finally the same tall, gaunt, sallow guard was standing in front of my cell. He paused before putting a key in the lock.

  “Matt Preston?” Since he knew who I was it took everything I had not to make some flippant comment. But I was determined to stay on the good side of the turnkey so I just held my peace. I walked up and stood in front of the cell door.

  I smiled at the thin stooped old man. “Here sir,” I said. He again asked me to step back and I complied. Once I was out of my cell, we turned opposite way of the way we’d gone last time. I just assumed we were headed off to court. When we finally entered a room, I saw Sakol standing there waiting for me.

  “Sakol!” I exclaimed. I don’t think I was ever so happy to see his familiar face. “What’s this all about?”

  Sakol ignored me for a moment and spoke to the guard. “Thanks, Frank. I’ll let you know when we’re finished with him.” The thin guard grunted and shuffled off. Sakol looked at me and smiled. “Come.” I followed.

  We wandered down a couple of corridors and then Sakol stopped and opened up a door for me. We entered and sitting at one of the desks was Jeff. As I embraced him, unexpectedly I found tears in my eyes. I wasn’t used to being in jail and I found my emotions were not as in check as I would’ve liked. Jeff squinted at me and in a gruff voice said, “I’m still pissed at you for hanging up on me. You have a habit of doing that. Someday I’m going to get really pissed and you’re going to regret it.”

  “I apologize. Sometimes you don’t want to listen to me and I just—well, I just hang up. I know I shouldn’t. Sorry about that. Forgiven?”

  “Well, kind of.”

  I figured that was a better answer than ‘no.’ I looked around the little room and noticed a TV sitting on a desk, the picture flickering. Next to the TV there was a video machine. Jeff took the lead. “This is the tape from the parking garage. We thought you would know the players in this cluster better than anybody else. We want you to take a look at part of this tape.” Sakol leaned over and punched a button on the VCR. The TV screen flickered a couple of times and then cleared up, and I was looking at a split image of the cash booth at the parking garage.

  Sakol explained, “The time span of this video is from when you had your argument with Cox until the police showed up and arrested you.”

  Jeff pointed at the left half of the screen. “The video is speeded up and this is the side we want you to watch.” The video ran and because of the speed, the cars seemed to jump past the cashier’s stand. Suddenly Jeff exclaimed, “There, did you see it?”

  I shook my head no. Jeff reversed the tape a few frames. This time it was running in normal speed and Jeff pointed to the screen. “There! Did you see it?”

  I thou
ght I saw a shadow in the background. I asked them to play it again. We went back and forth several times, sometimes normal speed and sometimes running as slow as possible. I was intently watching the shadows moving in the background. I pointed out what I thought was the bill of a ball cap on the shadow’s head. For one brief moment the shadow looked towards the cameras and even though you couldn’t see the face, the fact that the bill of the cap was set off to one side was clear. I pointed to the picture and told them, “That was the way Cox wore his hat. The bill was cocked off to one side when I saw him in the restaurant.”

  “We wondered if that was Cox,” Sakol said. “At least we have an idea when he snuck into the garage. I’m wondering if he didn’t sneak in to try and get even with you. He was hiding to jump you, but it appears somebody jumped him first?” The way Sakol’s voice lifted it came out like a question.

  As we talked, the video continued to run. I watched as the police car went past the booth and then several more. Just as Jeff leaned over to turn the VCR off, a white car pulled up to the booth. When the driver looked over, I recognized the face at once. It was Ambruster. I spoke so loudly and quickly I startled both of them. “Stop! Look at that.”

  Both of them looked at the screen and then back at me. “Who is that?” Jeff asked me.

  “That is Kim Tate’s nanny slash bodyguard slash father.” We continued to watch as Ambruster paid his parking fee. Once he dropped a bill and when he bent over to pick it up, I saw his left hand, wrapped in a towel. “Back it up, back it up…” I urged.

  This time both of them saw the hand wrapped in something white. They looked at each other and Jeff nodded at Sakol. “Go and check it out,” he commanded.

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “Sorry Matt, it’s back to lockup for you. But as soon as I find out what’s up with this dude, I’ll get right back to you.”

  I wasn’t happy with the idea of going back to a cell, but my chances of getting out looked better than before.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Once more I was bonding with the bunk in my cell when I heard the way too familiar sound of the electronically controlled steel door at the end of the corridor scraping open. Again, I wondered if putting some WD-40 on it might help the noise and then laughed at myself. I had the same thought every time I heard the steel door open. If it bothered me that much, I wondered how the guards could stand hearing it day after day.