Splicer (A Thriller)

by Theo Cage

  Rusty looked around the lot, saw an older man not fifty feet away, dressed like a maintenance worker, turn slowly and detour around them. His only expression, boredom. Rusty lowered his voice. "You believe what you want. But I thought you, of all people, would be smart enough to know a frame up when you saw one."

  "Don't con me, remember, I was your partner. You're goin' down! And you know it. And when they find you a nice cozy cell, say hi to the boys from me. They'll show you a good time, Rusty. A real good time." With that, Grieves drew back slightly, then kicked upwards, connecting with Rusty's groin. Rusty dropped back, bending over instinctively with the pain, an ache that was growing like a shock wave out from his testicles and up into the pit of his stomach. Grieves rolled backwards over the guardrail, landed on the ground, then hunched over and ran for the stream of traffic beyond the egress ramp. Rusty followed, feeling useless - bunched over and breathing hard.

  :

  Rusty hit the steel guardrail low, cutting his right shin deeply, and was thrown violently to the pavement by his own momentum. He looked up at Grieves who had by now put about thirty yards between them. He pulled himself up, uncoiling from the knot of sick white-hot pain that seemed to spread through his arms and legs.

  Grieves dodged left, heading between the honking vehicles. Rusty heard brakes screeching and rubber on pavement. Grieves continued to scurry around the moving cars. Rusty picked himself up then raced at an angle to Grieves' retreat, hoping to cut him off. His leg throbbed with each step. Then Grieves dodged right this time and darted into an alleyway.

  Rusty was barely to the edge of the traffic, which was closing in the gaps created by the departing form of Grieves, who in his torn filthy coat looked like a man escaping his own imagined demons. Rusty waded through the traffic haltingly, catching his breath. He felt sure that despite Grieves' lead, the overweight programmer would tire quickly. And the alley led in only one direction, the river. From there he could only go in one of two directions, along the bank upstream or down.

  Rusty reached the mouth of the alley and looked down the dark canyon. There was no movement, no form recognizable as human. He ran carefully down the center, his feet splashing in the discolored pools, which collected where the pavement was rutted or broken. He scanned the sides of the alley, a wall of old crumbling brick, wet cardboard, drooping electrical cabling and broken crates.

  Grieves had dissolved into the chaos of lumber and dust. When Rusty reached the end of the alley, he spun to the south along the cluttered riverbank and realized his error. The riverside was covered with overgrown willow and river oak, a home for street people and unclassified dumping.

  Grieves could be hiding in a thousand holes, a hundred deserted car bodies. Rusty had lost him again.

  CHAPTER 37

  She could hear the random clicking of the keyboard keys; the sound filtered through the heavy bedroom floor beams. She didn't even have to look at the clock radio to know it was after midnight. Pulling on her bathrobe Ivy quietly made her way down the dark hardwood stairs. Karl Kozak, one orange-tinged hand holding a cigarette, was staring into the blue-green glow from the computer monitor.

  "I didn't hear you come in,” she said quietly. Without turning away, he answered.

  "Braintree called a meeting after shift close. Sorry. Didn't want to wake you."

  "How did it go today?" Her voice had lowered slightly, almost to a whisper. He squeezed his lips, a particle of tobacco from his home-rolled cigarette on the tip of his tongue. He shrugged. "As they say, the universe is unfolding as it should". She meant his heart. His doctor told him he needs to avoid stress. But how do you do that when you’re a Homicide detective? He was like her father; the type who could ignore pain and discomfort and act like nothing out of the usual was happening. Her father was a long distance truck driver who had died on a lonely stretch of highway out on the prairies - from an appendicitis attack. For her, a bad cold made her feel like life wasn't worth going on with.

  "Has Greg left yet?" She moved behind him, kneaded his bony shoulder with her fingers. He leaned back into it but refused to take his eyes off the screen. She noticed he needed a trim. Getting him to a barber was as tough as getting him to his first check-up in a decade. The one that started everything.

  "I'm still fighting with Braintree over the trip."

  "What are you working on?" He looked back at her sharply, surprised by her interest.

  "You really want to know?" Ivy nodded, continued with her massage.

  "Maybe I can help you solve this case so you'll come to bed with me," she said.

  He pointed to a line of text, one of a screen full of short sentences. "These are my notes on the Ludd murder."

  "I thought that was closed?"

  "Not to me."

  "My Clint Eastwood." She kissed the top of his head.

  "Redfield's lawyer made a big case in court out of the air-conditioning being on in Ludd's car when we found him. That started me thinking. Imagine you drive about a dozen blocks to the President’s Club. It's a warm evening. The sun is shining so you turn on the air. Then you arrive at the parking lot. You wait. You're in the shade. You sit there for twenty minutes or so - with the air-conditioning on full-blast. When Greg and I got there it was a warm night, but I was wearing a coat and I didn't find it that uncomfortable. And to sit in the car for twenty minutes with the air on full blast with the windows rolled up?"

  "The papers say he was an eccentric."

  "Don't believe everything you read in the papers. There's more. Now ... someone shows up. Rusty Redfield. And he gets in the back seat?"

  "Because he wants to garret poor Ludd."

  "Right. But all the doors are locked. His car had automatic door locks. I checked with a dealer. If the car is running and you put it in gear, kachunk. Locked."

  Ivy stopped the massage and rubbed her own fingers together. She had a touch of arthritis in both. "So the murderer walks up, the doors are locked. Ludd unlocks them. But not for the back seat. Not for an ex-employee that Ludd probably doesn't trust. Right?"

  "You think like me, Ivy dear. That's a scary thought."

  "You rub off on a gal." She pulled up a wooden side chair and sat close on his right. The warm glow of the screen lit up her long white hair. Though almost sixty, she still had the eyes of a young girl. Eager and innocent still.

  Koz flipped the page on the screen. "Now if two people walked up to Ludd's car that night it would have been perfectly natural to let the second one into the back seat."

  Ivy turned to him. "Ahhhh ... the mystery guest."

  "That's assuming that Redfield was one of them." She looked surprised. "Don't look at me that way," he said. "I know what you're thinking."

  Ivy pushed the chair back and stood, let her nightgown open for a brief second to expose one tiny breast, then pulled it back tightly around her waist. She smiled. "I'm going back to bed. Are you coming?" Kozak turned from the computer then back to her. "I'll be up in a minute," he answered. Her smile dissolved.

  "That's one of those COMPUTER minutes, right? What are they now, about an hour in human time?" At the door she stopped. "By the way, your friend Mooring did another report on the trial tonight. She definitely comes from the Broad Stroke School of the Television News. If you're not sure about Redfield maybe you should plant a bug in her ear." Kozak looked off across the room in thought for a moment. She wasn't sure if he was thinking about coming to bed with her or mulling over her question. "By the way," she said "What about the air?"

  He answered automatically. "If you were Ludd, drove into the parking lot, stopped, and then were attacked right away - you wouldn't have time to turn down the air. That would explain the temperature in the car. But if you sat and waited for more than a few minutes, you'd shut it off. That's what McEwan was getting to. Dimbrowsky has the timing all wrong. Whoever killed Ludd was someone who was already in the car when he arrived at the President’s Club. Sitting in the back seat. The only question is who?"

  CHAPTE
R 38

  Her client’s face was covered in road dust and the stink of Malcolm Grieves clung to him like a bad dream. He slouched in the tiny front seat of Jayne's sports car, filthy and tattered. His knee was bleeding through his jeans.

  "You were right about him," Rusty said. "He hates my guts. Judging by the look in his eyes, he would have killed me if he had a weapon. As it is, I think he gave me an infection just by breathing on me."

  Jayne, who had followed their confrontation from a distance, pulled slowly into the narrow alley. "I never trusted him. From the first time we met in court."

  "You don't trust anyone - you’re a lawyer."

  "Exactly." She looked out across the riverbank, the scum of civilization bobbing against the shore. Pop cans. Prophylactics. The bloated body of a dead rat.

  "What did he say?" she asked.

  "He hissed at me a lot. Told me I was going down. He looked about as far from repentant or afraid as you can get."

  "Get used to it. They're all like that."

  Rusty sat up and leaned towards her. "How do you do that twenty-four hours a day? How do you spend your entire working life with low-lifes and scum like him that you know are guilty as hell? And then as a bonus, you end up distrusting all the people you should have faith in."

  "Like you?"

  He rubbed his bruised elbow. "My motives, as my grandfather used to say, are as uncomplicated as goose poop."

  "Quaint. Was your grandfather ever arrested for murder?"

  He jerked his head back. "You think I deserve this?"

  She had lit up one of her rare cigarettes. It seemed to Rusty that she did this more to irritate people than to relax herself. To fortify this theory, she blew a mouthful of smoke in his face. "I think you should stop trying to figure me out," she said, building her case. "I don't need your amateur evaluation. "

  Rusty slouched down deeper into his seat. "I know you’re worried. That's fine. Take it out on me if you want."

  He expected this to calm her. It failed. She blinked at him through the cigarette smoke. "What's with this Mr. Sensitive routine all the time? Are you trying to get into my pants, Redfield?"

  Rusty sat up, feeling a twinge in his back. He opened the car door. "I think I'll walk." He got out and flipped the door closed then turned back toward the alley where he had chased Grieves. He heard nothing for a moment, then the R8 revved and he heard it move up from behind. She was following him - in reverse. He tried to ignore her and limped back toward the main road. McEwan accelerated and spun the car around to block his way. She pressed on the horn. She looked at him through the glass and gestured for him to get back in.

  "This is pretty silly, McEwan. I've heard of ambulance chasers but this is ridiculous."

  She rolled down the window and tossed the cigarette. "I'll help you look for Grieves."

  "Why should you?"

  She shrugged. "It'll help my case."

  "You don't have time. I understand that. I've got more than I need. See you in court."

  She honked the horn again - a longer blast this time. He stopped and sighed.

  "You don't have any sisters do you?" she asked.

  He turned to favor his left leg. "I give up. Why?"

  "Do you?"

  "No."

  "I could tell. If you had sisters you wouldn't take everything I said so seriously."

  "That's an interesting idea - since you're the one taking things too seriously. I didn't ask to get into your pants. I was trying to understand how you think. I'm soft in the head that way."

  "You're saying you have absolutely no interest in me - as a woman?"

  "Now what the hell is that supposed to mean? You're not a woman, you're a lawyer!"

  "That's supposed to be a compliment, right?"

  Rusty shrugged his shoulders. Looking down at her he saw a young woman with intelligent eyes and a mischievous smile that kept him awake nights. She was sad and cocky all at the same time. She was complicated all right. Problem was - he was attracted to complicated.

  "Since you won't leave me alone, how about if you let me buy you a drink. I owe you."

  "Fine," she said, pushing his door open. When he climbed in, she slapped rail yard dust from his jacket and wrinkled her nose. "But it would probably be a good idea to stay away from any place that has a dress code."

  CHAPTER 39

  They drove in silence to a small ice-cream outlet in the older, once upper class, now lower middle section of town. They decided that in Rusty's present condition; there were very few bars or lounges that would admit him. And the one's that would, they weren't interested in. It was Friday night and the parking lot was full of wagons, four-wheel drives and passenger vans. Patio lanterns lit a picnic area by the lake. Couples wandered down to a white painted railing along an extended dock and lookout. Over the water, the colored lights of Burlington smeared and ran on the moonlit surface of Lake Ontario.

  After standing in line and braving the stares of the suburban family crowd, they took their ice cream and walked down to the dock.

  "Did you ever meet a client or an associate and feel like you've known that person before?" asked Rusty.

  "As in another life?"

  He laughed. "How can you have another life when you're not having one now?"

  She took a bite from a plastic spoon full of pineapple and dripping chocolate mocha. "Look at this? How can this not be a life? I'm having a life right now!"

  "When was the last time you were here?"

  "I've never been here."

  "Exactly." He sucked on his milkshake, a blueberry trapped in the straw. "What do you work so hard for, Jayne?"

  "We driven individuals never ask that question - it slows us down."

  "So you never wonder about all of this? As in why we are here? What's this all about, Alfie?"

  She tossed her head, clearing her hair from her face. A light breeze from the lake blew it back. "I don't have time to worry about it. Crime never sleeps you know. Anyway, you seem have forgotten your original question"

  "You have that effect on me." He rubbed his forehead. "Right. I asked you if you ever met someone for the first time and it seemed like you've known them for years."

  "My answer is no."

  Rusty leaned down on the railing with his elbows. "Jayne, if you were a man, I'd be having a lot less trouble with this relationship."

  She glanced at him sharply. "Maybe you should explain that!"

  He thought for a moment. "The minute we met, I liked you. It was like I had known you for years. I admired your rebellious nature, your I don't give a damn attitude. And you have a sense of humor too - that doesn't mean you’re fun to be around, it only means you're smart enough to recognize the irony in all of this. I've always found that attractive in people."

  There was that secret smile again. "And you don't like humor in a lawyer?"

  "I don't like the fact that you try to pretend that nothing matters. If you were a man, we could both go have a game of golf, have a few drinks together, watch the game on TV. We don't have to hug each other to recognize that we like each other’s company. But you? I look at you the wrong way and you think I'm trying to seduce you!"

  "Are you?"

  "Of course I am, but that has nothing to do with it."

  "Hah! It has everything to do with it."

  "If you were a cocktail waitress with an IQ of sixty, I might still be tempted to try and pick you up. Why wouldn't I?" He tried again at his milkshake. "I think you're attracted to the life. The courtroom and the cops and the unknown are probably what turns you on."

  "And the jails. Don't forget the jails. They have a certain ambiance you just can't understate." A boat horn blew in the distance. "You're what my father would have called Section 8 ... that's Army talk for lunatic. Wouldn't he be proud of me now? I'm having ice-cream with a suspected felon and a madman."

  "So can you just acknowledge that you like me at least? Just admit it. I'll feel a lot better."

  "But I won't."
<
br />   "Why?"

  "It’s not professional."

  "Punch out, Jayne. Leave the office for a few seconds."

  "O.K. If it will make you shut-up so that I can enjoy the view in silence, fine. I like you. But you’re not my type."

  "You just like me?"

  "Objection your honor, plaintiff is badgering council."

  "I appreciate how difficult this has been for you - revealing a tiny sliver of your feelings this way must have been extremely painful."

  His sarcasm struck a nerve. "We can't all be as balanced as you, Redfield. Let's just say that it's not something I do a lot of. Or we did a lot of ... in our family."

  "Is that why you mentioned your father?"

  She looked away. "You're supposed to be a programmer or a salesman. Where did you get the credentials to psychoanalyze me?" Rusty shrugged his shoulders. "I mentioned my father because he was a very practical, very successful lawyer, who would think that I had gone off the deep end having anything at all to do with a guy like you. Client or otherwise."

  "What about your mother? Was she like that too?"

  Jayne's eyes seem to de-focus, her hand half-lifted to her mouth. "She was about the bravest person I've ever known. Tried to leave us several times when I was a kid. But my father wouldn't let her. Didn't fit into his plans. At the time I would have been devastated by it, of course. But now I realize it would have been the best thing for her. For all of us. I know she always had the will to do it."

  "She left your father?"

  "I thought you knew the story?" she said quietly.

  "The story?" He was puzzled. He felt suddenly left out of the loop. Did her father abuse her?

  "The famous mister James McEwan? Criminal Lawyer. Powerful. Rich. A lot of enemies. Domineering as hell. Distant. But he wasn't a wife-beater. I would have remembered that. Unfortunately, what he did was worse."