A Vicious Balance: A Mystery Thriller

by Jolyon Hallows

  “So how could she figure out what Winters did with the letter?”

  “It could be as simple as following him. Maybe she even walked along with him on his route. All she had to do was watch to see if he removed the letter from the pouch. But of course, Winters didn’t deliver the letter. We know he deposited it into the recycle bin at the mall. Galina could have watched him doing that.”

  “But didn’t you say Winters had been told to change from his uniform before he dropped the letter off? That must have meant he went home first. Galina would have had to be there with him.”

  Travathan nodded. “I doubt Winters would have objected. My guess is that in his overheated mind, they were about to have another joust, this time in his bed. But first, he had to drop off the letter. She could have followed him to the mall and watched him put it in the recycle bin.”

  “And then observed the beggar, Oliver Raynor, taking it out? That means she’d have had to hang around the bin waiting.”

  “Not for long. These handovers can’t take a lot of time. After all, the recycling company could empty the bin before Raynor got to it. She wouldn’t have had much of a wait before he showed up.”

  Meyer said, “Using a beggar as a drop? That’s a good choice. Nobody would wonder about a beggar scavenging in a recycle bin.”

  Kagan said, “Okay, now she knows the beggar is the next drop. Now what?”

  “Same process. Seduce Raynor, make his afternoon visits a custom, then request a second letter. This time, she finds the letter in Winters’ pouch. That afternoon, it’s in Raynor’s shirt pocket.”

  “But he could have gotten rid of it before he visited her.”

  “Not likely. Think of the timing. Winters finished his route in the early afternoon when he dropped the letter into the bin. Raynor retrieved it, but then headed for Galina’s house. It’s unlikely he would have handed it off so soon.”

  Meyer said, “I don’t agree. When a drop hands off a letter, the timing has to be tight because nobody wants to hang onto it for long. The sooner you get rid of the letter, the better.”

  “Normally, you’re right, but bear with me. The next handoff could not have happened until late in the afternoon.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll get to that. For now, just accept that Raynor couldn’t hand off the letter right away.”

  Kagan said, "But Raynor could have just left the letter in his beggar’s box at the mall. Why would he take it with him?”

  Meyer said, “Mr. Kagan, are you serious? Leaving it would be suicide. The drops are indoctrinated that if they lose a letter, they will pay. Raynor wouldn’t let it out of his sight until he’d passed it on.”

  Kagan said, “Okay, we know Jake Handley was the next drop. How did Raynor pass the letter on?”

  Travathan said, “I don’t know for sure, but this is my speculation. We know Raynor passed the letter on to Jake Handley, and we know it would have violated the rules for them to have been in contact. So Raynor had to put the letter somewhere Handley could pick it up. We know they had one thing in common: the library. Raynor was a regular and Handley did his homework there. My guess is that when Raynor got a letter, he’d put it inside a book, preferably an obscure one.”

  “How would Handley know a letter was there?”

  “Again, I can’t say for sure, but one simple way would be for Raynor to pin an announcement onto the bulletin board. It wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but it would signal to Handley there was a letter.”

  Kagan said, “That hangs together, but how would Galina have figured this out.”

  “That one bothered me. She wouldn’t have known about the library, and she couldn’t spend a lot of time in the parking lot watching Raynor. She’s not inconspicuous. She’d have to get creative. She’d have suspected that Raynor wouldn’t get rid of the letter until just before whoever picked it up did so. The timing had to be tight.”

  “Hold on. Why tight?”

  “Just as Agent Meyer said, once a drop has taken place, the recipient has to pick it up quickly because something else could get in the way.”

  “Ah, like getting the letter out of the recycle bin before it was emptied?”

  “Yes. Or in this case, getting it out of the library in case someone checks out the book.”

  “So the handoff has to be fast. But how does knowing this help Galina?”

  “It gives her a strategy. If you know someone is under a time constraint and you want to put pressure on them, what would you do?”

  “Keep them busy?”

  “Right. Galina could keep Raynor busy in her bed until he was desperate to get back to the mall. So desperate he was immune even to her.”

  Kagan nodded. “If he was that desperate, she could even have offered to drive him. Now she could watch him hurry into the library. But that’s risky. As you said, she’s conspicuous. Surely Raynor would have spotted her.”

  “Not necessarily. Remember, he’s focused on getting rid of this damn letter. Besides, she wouldn’t have had to follow him into the stacks, she could just observe the note he pinned to the bulletin board, hang back, and watch who removed it. That would be Jake Handley.”

  Kagan said, “So now she’s figured out that Handley is the third drop, and he’s her next target. How does she get him into her bed?”

  “I couldn’t figure that out. Then I remembered something Handley said in my first meeting. I asked him how he met her. He said something about stalking.”

  “Stalking? He admitted that? That’s a criminal offense.”

  “Max, he’s in prison for murder. Being charged with stalking isn’t going to affect his term. My guess is that he was a teen who spotted a hot woman and whose hormones kicked in. He could have spied on her. There’s a big oak tree that fronts the property. He could have hidden behind that, but she must have seen him, recognized him as the kid from the library, and given a cheer.”

  “Pretty lucky.”

  “Sometimes you get lucky.”

  “So how does she figure out he’s the last drop?”

  “Again, speculation, but once she had Handley as a regular in her bed, she could call for one final letter. Throughout that day, she’d spot it in Winters’ pouch, in Raynor’s pocket, and in Handley’s shirt. What if she took the letter and hid it? Handley would come back looking for it, and she’d pretend to find it. She might have made a show. ‘Why do you have this letter addressed to my house?’ Handley, who after all is still a kid, blurts out he has to get the letter to his dad. That’s the end of the story. Galina has broken the system, identified all the drops, and fingered the person responsible for the system. Ed Handley. Jake’s father.”

  27

  Ruth Janner entered the room. Her apologies for being late were ignored while Kagan, MacIlhenny, and Agent Meyer were staring at Travathan. MacIlhenny broke the silence.

  “Hold on. You’re saying Jake’s father was the brains behind the letter drop? What was it for?”

  “That I don’t know. But all of these threads, through Jake and Larry Sanderson lead to Ed Handley. I believe he ran the operation.”

  “We could check on that, but he’s dead. Killed in a traffic accident.”

  “That’s too much of a coincidence. To me, it strengthens the case that Ed Handley was in charge.”

  Kagan said, “So you don’t think it was a coincidence Galina was sleeping with all three drops.”

  “One? Maybe. Two? Unlikely. All three? Impossible. No. I never thought that.”

  MacIlhenny said, “But why kill Ron Mahmoud and Raynor? Once she’d broken the drop, these terrorists had the information they needed. Surely their target was whoever was running the operation, not the foot soldiers.”

  “My opinion? This whole operation was to get revenge on the supplier. I don’t know why. All I can say is that Sherry Galina’s mission was to crack it. And she did. And by the way, the only reason they killed Mahmoud was because Galina reported that the letter carrier was one of the drops. And on
that day, that was Mahmoud.”

  Kagan said, “So you don’t think the drops were killed by the supplier organization?”

  Travathan nodded. “No. I realized that if that were the case, they wouldn’t have killed Mahmoud because they knew he wasn’t part of the drop. No, it wasn’t the supplier. In fact, the supplier probably didn’t even know he’d been compromised. Think about it. These terrorists went to a lot of trouble to crack the system, and I doubt they did this for fun or as an academic exercise. It has all the earmarks of revenge, which explains the killings of Mahmoud and Raynor.”

  “Revenge or maybe they were trying to take over the operation.”

  “That makes no sense. If they wanted their own operation, why not just start one? Or even offer more money to the drops who were already in place? They have the resources. No, this was revenge.”

  “So why kill Mahmoud and Raynor but not Jake Handley? If they wanted revenge, there’s nothing special about him.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they needed him to take the fall for killing Galina.”

  MacIlhenny said, “Take the fall? You don’t think Handley did it?”

  “No, I don’t. I’ve never believed he did, and it makes no sense for him to have done so. He had no motive. As far as he was concerned, he was into a good thing.”

  “If Handley didn’t kill her, do you have any informed speculation as to who did?”

  “My money is on her husband, Tony Galina. The man who directed the operation.”

  “Wait,” McIlhenny exclaimed. “First, he had an alibi. Second, she’d just completed this mission he gave her. From his point of view, she deserved a medal. Why kill her?”

  “To your second point first. Why kill her? She may have been successful in cracking the letter drop, but the way she did it was a violation of morality and an offense against her God, her husband, and her religion.”

  “But theirs was a marriage of convenience solely to carry out this job. He can’t have been in love with her or something like that.”

  “Why not? After all, they shared a philosophy, even if it was demented. I don’t have a problem thinking he felt something for her. And even if he didn’t, she was still his wife in the eyes of the public and more important, his peers in this Hammer of Vengeance. I agree they were only using Islam as a rationale for violence, but they had still adopted some twisted view of its mores. According to them, she betrayed him. In a good cause, to be sure, but still a betrayal.”

  MacIlhenny shook her head. “Even if that made sense, he had an alibi. How do you get around that problem?”

  Travathan turned to Janner. “Ruth, what did you find out when you checked into his alibi?”

  Janner sat immobile, nor did she respond to his question.

  “Ruth,” he snapped, “what did you find out when you checked into Tony Galina’s alibi?”

  She frowned. Her voice was quieter than normal. “It’s solid. I spoke to the man who met with Galina when his wife was killed. He confirms the story.”

  Travathan nodded. “Well, that’s interesting, because a few weeks after Sherry Galina was killed, the guy who gave Tony Galina his alibi was laid off by his employer in a corporate merger. I checked yesterday. Nobody there has ever heard of him. “How do you explain that, Ms. Janner?”

  He paused.

  “Or should I call you Mujaahida?”

  The room went silent. Bodies tensed. Faces flattened. Janner’s look turned into a glare. Her eyes narrowed, her jaw gripped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Too late, Ruth. Micro-expressions, remember?”

  She leapt out of her chair, her face twisted with rage. “I’ve been helping you on this case. How can you even imagine that I’m some kind of traitor, this . . . this Mujaahida?” She started to ease toward the door. Agent Meyer moved to block it. MacIlhenny shifted up close behind her.

  “Helping me? I wondered how the man who tried to shoot us on the river knew when Kevin Winters and I would be there, or even that we’d be there. The only people who knew were the three of us, and Winters wasn’t about to tip off a homicidal maniac.”

  Her voice became pleading. “Come on. I know we’ve never liked one another, but you can’t believe I’d betray you. There were dozens of people in that river rafting place. Winters could have told the wrong person and not known it.”

  Travathan shook his head. “Not possible. If anyone he told wanted to kill him, that person would have done so years ago. The shooting on the river tells me the killer had just found out who David Claudy really was. Then there’s the problem of Kevin Winters himself.”

  “What problem?” MacIlhenny asked.

  “He’s dead. Shot in his motel room not far from where we dropped him off. As I recall, Ruth, you were with me. What did you do? Call your contact? Or did you go to the motel and kill him yourself?”

  Her face reflected agony, tears slid down her cheeks. “That’s madness. How can you think that? I went back home. I never went anywhere near that motel. Besides, if I’m this Mujaahida, if I wanted you dead, I could have killed you a dozen times when we were alone.”

  “Standard procedure. Don’t expose yourself more than necessary. If you kill me when we’re working together, you’d be the cops’ prime suspect. Have someone else do the dirty work, then portray yourself as an innocent bystander.”

  Her voice became small. “Do you really think I’m that devious? What about that threatening note to me? Would I have to be dead for you to realize I’m on your side?”

  “The note? My guess is that you wrote it.”

  Janner, her eyes rimmed with tears, turned to Kagan. “Max, it’s not true. You know me. Tell him it’s not true.”

  Kagan’s eyes shot back and forth between Janner and her accuser. “Gord, this is a serious charge. Are you sure?”

  Travathan handed Kagan the picture of the two women at Emily Dennison’s house. Kagan’s face tightened. His eyes grew cold. He handed it to Janner. “Explain this.”

  Ruth Janner glanced at the picture, her body slumping as if in defeat, drooping toward her chair. In a sudden movement, she snatched a knife from her purse and hurled herself toward Travathan. MacIlhenny was faster. She grabbed Janner’s arm and twisted. Janner shrieked with pain, the knife falling to the floor. MacIlhenny threw her into the chair and reached for a set of handcuffs. In the tumult, nobody noticed that Janner had thrust her other hand toward her mouth.

  Travathan ripped her blouse. On her shoulder was a tattoo. A hammer and crescent. He said, “Ms. Janner, who is your contact, and how do you reach him?”

  She spat at him, her voice a snarl. “My name is Mujaahida. That’s all you’ll get from me.”

  He shook his head. “So all this talk about wanting justice. About why you decided to work with lawyers. All that was nonsense.”

  She glowered at him. “Justice? My brother went to trial but between his sleazy lawyer and a bored judge, his peers on the jury were so anxious to get back to their golf games or afternoon soap operas, they found him guilty in just two hours.”

  She winced as McIlhenny fastened the handcuffs. “Justice? The second day in prison, Richard was raped and murdered by a gang while the sadistic guards just stood around and laughed. My father committed suicide, and my mother went into depression so badly she had to be sent to an institution. She’s still there, drooling and staring at the wall.”

  Her voice a snarl, she said, “Justice? Your wonderful justice system shattered my family, and on that day, I renounced the Whittaker name forever. The man who found me gave me a new family and a new name. You want to know who he is? You will soon find out. None of you will survive his vengeance. I will not betray him. I will die first.” She clamped down with her teeth, yelled “Allahu Akbar,” and swallowed.

  Travathan grabbed for her, trying to force her mouth open, trying to make her vomit, but to no avail. Ruth Janner, Mujaahida, slumped back in her chair, her eyes open, unseeing.

  28

  Agent Meyer
and Doris MacIlhenny faced Kagan and Travathan in a safe house to which MacIlhenny conducted them after she had the coroner remove the body of Ruth Janner. They sat in silence, interrupted by Kagan’s lament. “I’d guess that kind of experience could twist anybody. I know how being wrongfully convicted can destroy a person, can wipe out an entire family. That’s why I do this work. For people like Ruth Janner or Whittaker or whatever her name was.” He slumped in his chair, his eyes unfocused, his breathing shallow.

  MacIlhenny sucked in her breath. “Whittaker. Richard Whittaker. Now I remember. Whittaker was a street punk, drug dealer, and sometime pimp. His father was sentenced to life without parole for twenty-five years for murder—he’d killed a rival drug dealer—and his mother spent most of her time on the street. Whittaker got into a turf war with another gang. They laid a trap, and he slit the throat of one of his rivals. Like father, like son. Both of them are now serving time.”

  Travathan said, “You mean they’re still alive?”

  “They were the last I heard.”

  “Does your memory of the case include the guy’s sister?”

  “No. All I know is they were a family from hell.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait, it’s coming back to me. Social services placed her in a group home. I guess she must have finished high school and gone on to university.” She turned toward the door and said, “I’ve got to get back to the precinct. Meyer, they’re in your hands now.”

  Meyer waited for MacIlhenny to leave. “You guys are in a lot of trouble. Let me count the bodies. Sherry Galina, Ron Mahmoud, Oliver Raynor, Kevin Winters, and the guide, Albert Nordstrom. Oh, and the Cramer kid. If it weren’t for a blown hit, you two would also be on that list. My problem is that I don’t know what we’re up against, so I don’t know how to protect you.”

  “Protect us?” Travathan said. “That means getting rid of Tony Galina.”