Death Never Lies

by David Grace

  “OK, OK. Him for me. Fine. Hey, I don’t owe the motherfucker anything.”

  “You remember that if you want to live. It’s his life for yours.”

  * * *

  Ryan Munroe was thirty-eight years old and boyishly thin. His face was all angles and planes, unsoftened by a wispy mustache and close-cropped auburn hair. Watching Munroe slouch into the steel chair Tony Canaro thought, I let Franco Herrera live in order to get him? Then Tony noticed Munroe’s self-satisfied smile and the glitter in his pale, blue eyes.

  “You’ve been read your rights. Do you want to do yourself some good here?”

  “Form without substance,” Munroe answered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The trappings of freedom where none exists.”

  “With all the drugs and weapons we found in your barn, you’re not going to have any freedom for a long time unless you’ve got something to trade,” Quinn told him.

  “I don’t recognize your right to imprison me. I am a free man, not some puppet of your totalitarian government.”

  “You’re a prisoner who’s going away for a long time unless you can convince us to cut you a break. Give up your suppliers and help us round up your customers and you can do yourself some good.”

  “I’ll do myself some good all right.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tony asked.

  “I’ve committed no crime. Free men take what they want and keep what they take.”

  “Do you have a couple of screws loose? Do you think you can beat this on an insanity defense?”

  Munroe looked around the interrogation room then turned back to Tony Canaro. “When does the Federal Gestapo get here?”

  “We don’t need the feds. You’ve broken more than enough state laws.”

  Munroe smiled and clasped his cuffed hands.

  “I’ll only talk to the Gestapo.”

  “Prisoners have access to a payphone. You can call the FBI yourself if you want.”

  Munroe stared straight ahead and refused to say another word. Two days later Canaro was told that the following morning Munroe was being transferred from the Intake and Booking Center on Madison Street up to the Central Maryland Correctional Facility in Sykesville.

  “Why isn’t he going to the CC on Greenmount?” Canaro asked the clerk but no explanation was forthcoming.

  * * *

  Kane returned to consciousness a day and a half after he’d been shot. His head hurt like hell and everything seemed vaguely disconnected. His doctors spent most of the rest of that day testing his vision, hearing, memory and speech centers. His memory had some holes in it and they wouldn’t let him out of bed for fear that he would fall over and do more damage, but by and large they were highly encouraged by the results. That evening they let him have a couple of visitors. The first was his wife, Elaine, who alternately fussed over him and complained both about his rotten job and his reckless bravery. Kane was secretly pleased when she left. His second was his Lieutenant who told him to take all the time he needed and that his job would be waiting for him when he was ready. Then it was back to more tests and lots of rest.

  It was four days later when they removed all visitor restrictions. The first person in line was his brother Tommy’s son, Jason.

  “Hi Uncle Greg,” Jason said beginning a high-five and then pulling it back to a sedate handshake.

  Greg noted the change in Jason’s uniform and pointed vaguely at the boy’s shoulder.

  “You finished your probation.”

  “Yeah, I’m a real cop now just like you, Uncle Greg.”

  “Well, not just like me, I hope,” Kane said touching his bandaged head.

  “How do you feel?” Jason tried not to stare at the dressing.

  “My head hurts.”

  “Well, yeah. But uummm . . . .”

  “The doctor said the bullet mostly skidded along the inside edge of the skull and popped out the back. One in a million. He said that with luck like that I ought to be buying lottery tickets.”

  “I’ll buy one for you,” Jason volunteered.

  “Good idea. My wallet’s in that drawer.”

  “No, I got it, Uncle Greg.”

  “It won’t be lucky unless I pay for it. You want me to win don’t you? Go on. There’s a single in there someplace. . . . What are you going to be doing now that you’re off probation?” Kane asked while the boy searched for the money.

  “I don’t know. They’ve got me partnered up tomorrow with a fifteen-year guy, Mearle Farber. You know him?”

  “No. Detectives and deputies, you know.”

  “It’s kind of an interesting assignment.”

  “Oh, what’s that?”

  “We’re, Farber and me, transporting the guy who sold the scumbags who shot you the guns they used.”

  A couple of guys from the squad had managed to sneak past the nurses and Tony Canaro had come by personally to give Kane the details on Ryan Munroe’s arrest.

  “You’re transporting Ryan Munroe? Where?”

  “Sykesville. I guess they figure he’s too big a fish for Greenmount.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense to me. Does he have some kind of juice?”

  “He’s just some nut-job anarchist as far as I know. He won’t get away with any shit on my watch. Don’t worry, Uncle Greg. I’m going to make sure that he’s locked up tight.”

  They talked a bit longer about Jason’s Training Officer, Paulie Siamone, and Jason’s latest girlfriend, who he seemed to be more serious about than any of the previous ones, and then Kane’s eyes began to droop. Jason noticed Greg’s fatigue and stood up to leave. Halfway out he stopped and gave Greg a formal salute.

  “You did good, Uncle Greg. We’re all proud of you,” Jason said, smiling.

  That was the last time Kane ever saw his nephew. Someplace between the booking center on Madison and Central Corrections on Buttercup Road in Sykesville Mearle Farber, Jason Kane, Ryan Munroe and the cruiser they were riding in all disappeared. None of them were ever seen again.

  For the last two years Greg Kane had been searching for some clue about what had happened to his nephew but he had found nothing. The boy had vanished without a trace.

  * * *

  Kane glanced at the clock. Almost ten-thirty. It felt like midnight. He put away the keyboard and went to bed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ryan Munroe watched the front door from a booth half way toward the back of the room. He had set the meeting for a little after three, a time when the only people in bars were either hard-core juicers or men like himself who wanted to conduct their business away from prying eyes. A flare of light washed over the first few tables each time the door opened then died out before it reached him. His man arrived at about a quarter after three and paused at the end of the bar to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom. After a moment he spotted Munroe hunched in the corner of his booth and signaled him with a flick of his index finger.

  “I don’t like sitting with my back to the door,” the man said as he slid into the seat opposite Munroe. Today the name on his driver’s license was “Paul Conklin,” the latest in a series of aliases he had used over the last few years. Once Conklin had gotten into the crook business full time he changed his name with the same regularity that traveling salesmen changed their cars. Ryan Munroe had switched names a couple of times in the last two years as well. It was a normal part of the outlaw life and men like Munroe and Conklin didn’t think about it twice.

  “The next time we’re doing this in my car,” Conklin said, glancing nervously over his shoulder.

  “All the cop cars have license-plate readers,” Munroe said shoving a bottle of Bud across the table.

  “I didn’t say we’d meet in a stolen car,” Conklin snapped. “My plate won’t raise any red flags.”

  “The plate numbers all go into Big Brother’s database. If some traffic camera gets a picture of me in your car and they match my face to their wanted list they’ll end up grabbing us bo
th.”

  “Nobody cares who’s in my car. It’s clean. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

  “And I’ve told you a hundred times that the G is looking for me. You ever hear of facial recognition software? This place,” Munroe glanced toward the bar, “doesn’t have any cameras. They’re bad for business.”

  “OK, fine, whatever,” Conklin said, sneaking another quick glance over his shoulder.

  “Relax. I’m watching the door. Nobody’s going to sneak up on you. Jesus!” Munroe took another pull from his beer. “Any problems with the job?”

  “If there had been a problem don’t you think I’d have told you? Believe me, I wouldn’t be sitting here if there’d been a problem.” Conklin gulped down half the bottle and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Munroe frowned but said nothing. “It was textbook,” Conklin continued, lowering his voice. “I held the stun gun under a map of D.C. and asked him for directions. When he bent over I gave him a blast to his chest. He didn’t make a sound. I had him in the van in three seconds. No muss, no fuss, no witnesses.” Conklin gave Munroe a hard stare. “And no surveillance cameras.”

  “What’d you do with the body?”

  “Don’t worry, they’re never going to find him.”

  “I’ll decide that for myself. Where’d you put him?”

  “You ever heard of the Luray Caverns?”

  “You stashed him in the Luray Caverns?”

  “Yeah, I’m an idiot. Jesus! I’m just saying that Virginia is lousy with caves and caverns and holes in the ground. I found a nice home for Mr. Br–”

  “No names!” Munroe snapped.

  “Fine. I found a nice home for our friend at the bottom of a hole where nobody’s ever going to find him.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s need to know and you don’t need to know,” Conklin said in a flat, dangerous voice.

  “Good, that’s good. Don’t tell anybody your business. I just need to know that he’s going to stay missing for the next two or three months.”

  What’s supposed to happen in three months? Conklin wanted to ask but didn’t. Questions like that made Munroe nervous. Questions like that got you killed.

  Munroe pulled an envelope from under the newspaper on the seat next to him and held it beneath the table. Conklin grabbed it and slipped it into his pants. After another quick look around he asked: “You got anything new for me?”

  “There’s a clean phone in there. Keep it charged and wait for my call.”

  “What’s the time frame? . . . I’ve got to pay my bills you know,” Conklin added in response to Munroe’s silence.

  “There’s going to be plenty of work for us, don’t worry about it. Take a couple of weeks off and enjoy yourself. I’ll be in touch. And don’t use that phone for any outgoing calls.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” Conklin snapped then glanced down at the newspaper. “What do you think about that?” he asked, nodding at the headline:

  New Threat On Justice’s Life

  Conklin was curious if Munroe’s people were planning on whacking Hopper but knew better than to ask.

  “If the son of a bitch thinks he can take our guns away from us he deserves what he gets.”

  “That would be like assassinating the President or something. That’s a lot of heat,” Conklin said in a harsh whisper. “The guy who did that would have to leave the country.”

  “Only if they knew who he was.”

  “They’d never stop looking for somebody who killed a Supreme Court judge.”

  Munroe smiled, then shrugged, as if imagining what might have been. “Whatever. Anyway, we have our own business to worry about. Big money’s coming our way. Real big money.”

  Conklin paused for a moment but Munroe didn’t volunteer any details. Conklin studied his employer for a heartbeat then slid out of the booth. The thing you had to remember when you worked for Ryan Munroe was that the guy wasn’t afraid of anything and that he was bat-crap crazy, as he had already proven to Paul Conklin on more than one occasion. But then, Conklin thought, most of the jobs I’ve done for him aren’t exactly your normal sort of projects either.

  Munroe slipped out the back door before Conklin even reached his car.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Kane had planned on spending the next morning searching for Albert Brownstein but Immerson would have none of it.

  “How was the seminar, Eustace?” Immerson asked when Kane and his partner entered his office.

  “Thrilling, sir,” Eustace said, straight faced.

  Immerson gave him a sour look and turned to Kane.

  “Good news. The U.S. Attorney sent down the warrant for Marilyn Jeffers.” Immerson handed Kane a stack of stapled pages folded in thirds. “Bring her in and see if she’s willing to cooperate then take her down to detention.”

  Kane glanced at the arrest warrant and calculated that the odds of getting Eustace to serve it alone while he tracked down Brownstein’s car were about the same as those of a starving fat man not grabbing the last jelly donut in the box.

  “I’ll drive,” Kane said, tossing the papers at his partner.

  * * *

  Marilyn Jeffers and her husband lived in a four-bedroom mini-McMansion just outside of Laurel, Maryland. It was one of the first things she had purchased when the payoff money had started rolling in.

  “A lot nicer than that dump she and her hubby had before she became a criminal mastermind,” Eustace smirked as Kane pulled in behind a black Range Rover at the top of the Jeffers’ driveway. “I guess crime does pay, for a while,” Eustace said, laughing as he fingered the arrest warrant.

  Kane led the way up the walk but when they neared the door Eustace pushed ahead. “Let me do it. I love this part.” Eustace pulled the glass storm-door out of the way.

  “Federal Agents!” BAM! BAM! BAM! “Open up! Federal Agents!” Eustace gave Kane a kid-on-Christmas-morning smile and turned back to the door. BAM! BAM! BAM! “Open up!” Eustace paused, listening, then looked uneasily around. “You checked right? She’s home, right?”

  “She called in sick Monday morning and she hasn’t shown up at her desk since.”

  “You don’t think she’s skipped do you?”

  Kane just looked from his partner to the seventy-thousand dollar Range Rover in the driveway and then back again.

  “Well, fuck this nonsense.” Eustace shoved the edge of the storm door into Kane’s hand and took a step back. He had just begun to raise his foot when they heard the clacking of a deadbolt followed by the sound of a security chain being released. A slice of pale face peered through the four inch gap between the door and the jam. “What is this–” Marilyn Jeffers began but Eustace didn’t let her get any farther.

  “We have a warrant!” Eustace shouted and shouldered the door out of the way. Her mouth gaping open, Jeffers stumbled backward and landed hard on her ass. Her look of astonished fear energized Eustace and he jogged past her into the living room leaving Kane to deal with the terrified woman. By the time Greg had her on her feet Jeffers’ face was filled with tears. Firmly gripping her arm Kane led her into the living room just as Eustace returned from the kitchen.

  A veteran of hundreds, maybe thousands, of arrests Kane, unlike his partner, knew how this was supposed to be done. Before Eustace could screw things up any farther he quickly patted Jeffers down and then asked, “Is there anyone else in the house?” Jeffers stared at him blankly, so disoriented that she couldn’t reliably have told him how much you got by adding two plus two. “Ms. Jeffers, I need you to focus,” Kane told her in a surprisingly gentle tone. At this point shouting would have only made things worse. “Is there anyone else in the house?”

  After half a second Marilyn nervously looked over her shoulder toward the stairway.

  “My husband’s upstairs, working. He works from home,” she babbled, her words coming out all in a rush. “He’s a corporate travel facilitator. He–”

  “Call him. Tell him to come downstairs.”

/>   It took Jeffers a moment to process Kane’s order then she turned toward the stairway and shouted in a voice on the edge of tears, “Charlie! Charlie! I need you to come down here!” Eustace started fingering the butt of his weapon and Kane feared that at any second his partner was going to race up the stairs like Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill.

  “Grant,” Kane said then repeated his partner’s name a second time. Eustace shifted his attention and Kane gave his head a little shake. Eustace stared for a moment and that was long enough for them to hear footsteps from the upstairs hallway. Eustace gave Kane a smile and a nod. A moment later a man somewhere between his late thirties and early fifties appeared at the top of the steps. He froze when he saw two strange men surrounding his wife. Eustace held up his ID.

  “Federal Agents! Please come down here, sir.” On paper the words might seem polite but it was anything but a friendly request.

  Charles Jeffers was wearing a long-sleeved, burgundy polo shirt over black slacks. His hair was cut short above a face as tight and flat as a plastic mask. His shoulders back, arms loose, Jeffers descended the stairs with his eyes glued on Eustace whose left hand possessively gripped Marilyn Jeffers’ arm.

  Watching Charlie Jeffers Kane felt a tingle run up his spine. Eustace’s smarmy smile told Kane that his partner wasn’t taking the husband as any kind of a threat. Kane had seen that kind of blindness get men killed.

  “Let go of my wife,” Jeffers ordered in a cold, flat tone as he neared the bottom of the steps.

  “You don’t give me orders, pal,” Eustace replied, his smile turning mean.

  Oh, Jesus! Kane thought and raced forward just as Jeffers’ hand darted beneath his shirt. Kane grabbed Jeffers’ wrist and pushed up while simultaneously punching him in the balls. Jeffers tiny, five-shot revolver made a noise like a balloon popping then he groaned and tried to curl around his throbbing groin. Kane’s right hand grabbed the gun by the cylinder and tore it loose then he released Jeffers’ wrist and allowed him to slump to the floor.