Priced to Kill

by Margaret Evans

  Mo Sanchez climbed the subject staircase and entered the bull pen, catching the tail end of the conversation.

  “You’re polishing the railings today? Better make sure you do it the way the Sergeant wants it done.”

  “Well, that’s what I’m trying to do,” Larsen defended himself. “But I can’t reach him. His phone went straight to voicemail, like it’s turned off or in a dead zone.”

  Brianna covered a smile with her hand, but Sanchez stared at Larsen.

  “Are you really trying to reach your boss on the first day off he’s had in months, not to mention he’s spending that day with Laura Keene?”

  That pulled a look from Jack Flynn in the surveillance room. It was brief, and he turned back to the monitors that were showing and recording the other officers in the field from their dashboard cams. But he called out to Larsen through the open door.

  “Leave them alone, Sam.”

  Larsen almost blushed. The youngest of the team, he had been babysat by Laura years ago.

  “Guess I can figure this brass thing out myself.”

  And the team went back to their jobs at their desks, but Broadmoor stopped by Flynn’s work station.

  “He’s usually reachable when he’s away,” she commented.

  “Try again in about an hour or so. If you still can’t reach either one of them, let me know. I’ll track their cell phones to see where they are. Connor would never turn off his phone. It’s probably an out-of-area signal thing.”

  “Can you check on his car?”

  “They took Ian’s truck to pick up the furniture. It’s old – no GPS.”

  “Okay,” Brianna said, “I just wish Sammy hadn’t tried to call them and gotten nothing but voicemail. Now I have to worry.”

  She answered her ringing phone. Dispatch reported an accident on the highway going north. She pointed at Mo and Sam, and the pair took off for the scene.

  Maybe it wasn’t Connor and Laura, but that was the direction in which they had headed to get to Arrington. When Sanchez called her that it wasn’t them, she was relieved, but it still didn’t explain what was going on and why she hadn’t been able to reach Connor.

  Ben Ross ran the laboratory at the medical clinic on the outskirts of Raging Ford. He was particularly proud of his Medical Technology degree and the lab he ran like a tight ship. It was a relatively easy job for him, with all the usual blood draws and lab tests his team of phlebotomists conducted. He was detail-oriented and always precise with the smooth sailing of his lab, he liked to think, so when his youngest and shortest phlebotomist brought the unusual lab test results to his attention, he frowned.

  “Did you make sure there was no contamination of the blood or urine samples?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ross. And there’s nothing wrong with the equipment, either. Or the software. I tested everything and re-ran everything, per standard procedures. May I suggest we try running—”

  “Well, this is inconclusive, but it trends toward something we don’t see very often, and we’ll need to make sure our testing is accurate. Do you have more samples left?” He had heard his staff member say the tests had been re-run and all equipment tested, but he wanted to see the same results a third time. He didn’t mention that he’d never seen this particular result except in undergrad labs where everything was tested.

  The phlebotomist nodded, having seen the same result only in her student years, as well, never in real life, but she hadn’t forgotten it, like all those things you never think you’ll see or use except that it’s interesting so it sticks in your head. She was grateful she wouldn’t have to try to convince Mr. Ross of what it might be.

  Ross looked her in the eye and spoke carefully.

  “After you re-run for the third time and get the same results, you know what additional tests to run, and you tell no one what you’re doing, and be sure to bring me the results immediately, no matter where I am or what I’m in the middle of.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ross.”

  Ross continued to be disturbed about the preliminary findings. His mind flew to all the possibilities for the results that had shown up thus far. This took him back to his student days when they ran every possible test on every known substance or toxin. If his staff member was right—and he would know that very quickly—it could only mean one thing: The test results were correct.

  He had confidence in the equipment and computers. He also spent much of his days walking through his lab, making sure his phlebotomists were following all lab protocols. That, of course, meant he couldn’t avoid the very real possibility that the test results were indeed accurate.

  And when his staff member came back with the validated test results a short while later, he took a deep breath and picked up the telephone to notify the patient’s doctor. But Dr. Anderson was out of town, so he called the clinic director who advised him to call the police. Someone in Raging Ford was in serious danger. And until they found the cause, others might be in danger as well.

  The call came to Marsha who was covering the front desk at the Raging Ford police station. She explained that Chief Mallory was out of the country on vacation and Sergeant Fitzpatrick was also unavailable for the day. She forwarded the call to the officer on duty, Corporal Brianna Broadmoor.

  Broadmoor paled when she heard the news from the medical clinic lab, and she put Ben Ross on hold while she contacted Deputy Chief Michael Fitzpatrick in Duluth. That’s when they all realized that with Connor’s and Laura’s phones going straight to voicemail and with Connor driving his brother’s old pickup truck with no GPS, no one knew where they were or how to reach them. And it was critical that they did.

  thirty-nine

  Dorr’s first mistake was to cuff Connor’s hands behind his back, thinking he was putting the more dangerous of the pair—the cop—under control. He said little as he pushed Connor step by step toward the trunk of his car.

  Connor watched the pair’s attitude and behavior and signaled to Laura with his eyes to do nothing. With three guns against them, they were definitely out-gunned, if not outmanned. She stood there looking helpless and frightened, her left hand holding her right arm, tucked against her side. He figured the fright part was genuine.

  When Dorr grabbed her by her right arm, she cringed and gave a soft cry.

  “Ow! I just got a tetanus shot,” she complained.

  “You won’t have to worry about that much longer,” Dorr said and made his second mistake by switching to her left arm.

  They made Laura drive the pickup truck with a silent Kitty aiming a gun at her waist and followed Dorr driving his car with Connor in the trunk. They headed farther down the road until they took a turnoff they almost missed in an area with which Laura was unfamiliar. The drive continued down the narrow, tire-rutted, uncleared snowy road until it ended in a heavily forested area near a small shack in what could only humorously be called a clearing.

  While Dorr dragged Fitzpatrick out of the trunk, Laura stayed close to Kitty but checked out her surroundings. Heavy, dense shrubs, trees, everything coated in the recent two-foot snowfall and no other way out except the dirt road on which they came. She spotted loads of animal tracks in the snow, some big, like moose or bear. Not much of an escape route, she thought.

  The captives were pushed roughly toward the shack where two chairs were lined up back to back and Dorr duct-taped Connor and Laura, each to their own chair. Connor’s cuffed wrists were behind his back between him and his chair back. Their legs were taped to their chair legs, and duct tape was wrapped tightly around their middles in one giant round many times, binding the pair together. Laura’s arms were taped to the chair arms.

  “Have fun, you two,” Dorr said. “Consider this my thanks for messing in my personal business.”

  Laura noticed the man hadn’t yet admitted he killed his wife.

  “You want that quilt. Why? Are your fingerprints on
it or something?”

  The man snorted.

  “Fingerprints are easy to get rid of. Evidence that you poisoned your wife is not. Enjoy yourselves. You’ll be a block of frozen whatever by morning, and after I get the quilt from your stupid store, Kitty and I will be on our way to the Riviera and from there to wherever. If anybody ever finds you, it won’t matter how long it takes them to figure it out. They’ll never find me.”

  “Where’s the money?” Connor pursued.

  “Melanie’s money in bearer bonds, which is now all mine and none of your business, is in a safe place at the airport where we’re going right after we get the quilt and destroy it.”

  And then Dorr made his third mistake.

  He moved towards the door, his gun now tucked in his pants not far from Connor’s gun. The moment he turned away from the captives, Kitty Lenz aimed her gun at Christopher Dorr, pulled the trigger twice, and blew two holes in the back of his head. After he fell, she reached down and pulled a key out of his pocket as well as Connor’s cell, his truck keys and the two guns.

  “I don’t want to share the money with you after all, Christopher. You’re too mean and you have no manners.”

  She climbed over his body to exit the shack.

  “Sorry, folks, but as my granddaddy used to say, nuthin’ personal.”

  Laura had been faced away from the front door, and she was glad of that now. But Connor had heard her gasp and felt her jump at the sound of the gunshots. He knew she sat frozen and was holding her breath, as he was. He exhaled first.

  “It’s okay, Laura,” he said quietly lest their escaping captor decided to come back. “She’s not shooting at us. She just killed Dorr. Now she’s leaving in her car.”

  “Why’s it so cold all of a sudden?”

  “Dorr fell in the doorway where she shot him. The door’s open. No jokes, please. We just witnessed a cold-blooded murder.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “Yes,” he responded tersely, looking at the dark red holes in the back of the man’s head, the pooling of blood on the floor growing bigger, the absolute stillness of the body. Nothing gentle about this death.

  “Now we have a bigger problem—”

  “Yes, we do. Getting out of here before we die of hypothermia.”

  And the snow started blowing about more heavily than predicted.

  forty

  Alison Fitzpatrick wrapped her scarf a couple of times around her neck and once over her mouth and nose, keeping the frigid air from invading her. She bent to pull several plastic containers of freshly baked apple butter muffins from the back of her SUV and carried them through the biting wind and swirling snowflakes across the parking lot and up to the front door of the senior citizens who lived or spent their days at Golden Rage. She baked them every year for Valentine’s Day as she and her good friend Frannie Keene used to do, carrying on the tradition long after her friend was murdered.

  She shoved her elbow in the general direction of the bell and the door flew open, pulled by the center’s director, Molly McKuen. Alison, Molly and Frannie had made a great trio in years past, throwing their efforts into the provision of care for a growing senior population, making sure everyone had a place to stay if they could no longer stay at home. They were also dedicated to making it as pleasant as possible.

  Golden Rage was a small center, owned and run by Saint Bartholomew’s Catholic Church. It took only about thirty-five people of varying ages, needs and disabilities. Over the years, it grew from a place to go and socialize and have some fun during the day to an overnight facility. Beds were installed, nurses gave their time free of charge to make sure all medications were taken, and if necessary, a doctor from the medical clinic donated his or her time and came out once or twice a week, more often if needed. There were board games, movies, Bingo, piano-playing, singing, card games, and once a year, even a play, often acted in wheelchairs.

  The center stayed open through church collections, federal, state and county funding, with a whole bunch of local support in the form of nurses’ aides, teens helping out, food donations from local stores and blankets from the Red Cross. Local schools at all levels made special treats for the seniors, visited and sang songs depending on the season. For Valentine’s Day, families and children brought home-made red-heart valentines to decorate the center.

  There was the usual bickering and back-biting among the elders, filled with criticisms such as, “You’re really old; I’ve a ways to go before getting there,” very typical of seniors who had let all their social filters go by the wayside. They made new friends, protected each other, and somehow, had a good time through it all.

  Alison brought her containers of muffins into the great room where lots of activity was already going on. The room was decorated with red and pink streamers twirled and hanging across the room from which were hung the valentines that the school children had made and brought. Then someone noticed that Alison was there with her muffins. Many remembered, some did not, and others were new. But the muffins went very fast and were enjoyed by all.

  As she was getting ready to leave and head home before the snowstorm got too severe, one of the elderly folks looked out the window and said, “Brrr! I’m glad we’re all safe indoors. I hear the temp is going down to forty below tonight.”

  It might not be quite that bad, but Alison had heard it might break a record, so she said a prayer for everyone to stay warm tonight and several prayers for those who couldn’t. And she added another prayer that no one would freeze to death.

  forty-one

  The heavy gusts of snow kept blowing into the cabin, growing stronger by the minute. The pair was chilled to the bone, shaking with cold. With Christopher Dorr’s body in the doorway, there was no blocking the arctic winds gusting more and more strongly into the little building, rattling its walls, some now landing on the trussed up pair.

  “Is she gone?” Laura asked.

  Connor couldn’t figure out the excited tone in her voice over her chattering teeth.

  “Long gone.”

  “Are you really sure Dorr’s dead?”

  “Yes,” he said, looking at the man’s head again. The M.E. would still insist on a complete autopsy, something Connor hated almost as much as witnessing a murder. This was his third, and watching the evil of taking a life got no easier. He hoped it never would.

  “Well, at least our government won’t have to spend any money on Dorr’s trial and hanging. Now we can get to work.”

  “What did you say? We’re stuck in an old shack in the middle of nowhere, duct-taped back-to-back to two chairs, in sub-freezing, probably close to zero degree weather. We’ll die if we don’t get out of here quickly.”

  “I know. But once we’re freed from our bonds, we can call for help.”

  “Did you bump your head somewhere during this afternoon’s events? How did you think we’d be able to contact anyone? Smoke signals? We can’t even drive away. She took my keys and phone. Ian had the truck jerry-rigged so you can’t hotwire it.”

  He was thinking that if they ever got out of this, his brother would be really mad about the truck; he’d have to pay for another set of keys and new locks. If their walk through the blizzard didn’t kill them first.

  “With my old LG cell phone that’s tucked up my right sleeve under my really tight long johns and underneath two layers of very heavy sweaters underneath my polar fleece jacket.”

  Connor was silent a moment.

  “Oh, that’s why you directed him to your left arm, pretending you’d just had a tetanus shot. Draw his attention someplace else.”

  “You should be a cop.”

  “That’s not your old skinny Razr-type phone from eleven years ago, is it?”

  “Yup. I kept it so I could reactivate it once I had a job. I grabbed it at the last minute because I’d forgotten to charge my iPhone
. Jeans too tight for me to use a pocket, so up my sleeve it went.”

  He’d noticed the tight jeans when they first started on the day’s journey. Seemed like forever and ever ago now.

  “I guess we’re lucky you forgot to charge your iPhone. It would have been kind of hard to hide that up your sleeve. We’re also lucky no one called you and it didn’t ring.”

  “I turned it off in case you got a call you had to take.”

  “Yeah, I was having trouble getting a signal right before we ran into them, and here? Who knows? But without sun, the temperature isn’t going up.”

  They were silent and shivering, considering their plight. By the slant of the sun rays, they both knew there wasn’t much time before the little winter warmth that yellow dwarf star provided at this latitude would vanish. The temperatures at this time of year often fell below zero and tonight, it promised double-digits below the mark. They knew they would not likely survive that. They’d be found, maybe one day, and three bodies would be there, if the wild animals didn’t get to them first. With the snow gusting into the cabin, everything would happen faster.

  “It’s snowing harder,” Connor commented, looking through the door. Snowflakes blowing into the cabin now starting to land on Dorr melted, but they would soon begin accumulating. It was getting much colder far too fast inside the cabin. If the winds picked up, the snow would soon put more than a dusting on the captives who were not more than eight feet or so from the door.

  “I hope they left the tarp over my loveseat and étagère. I paid a lot of money for them,” Laura commented.

  If the fall was heavy, six to twelve inches would blanket them a bit, buy them a little more time, but not for long. If it turned out to be a passing fancy, it would have no effect on the sub-freezing temperatures at all. And of course, with the door propped open by their demised nemesis, no blanket of snow would help much at all. In fact, the blanket would soon cover them, as well.

  “Can you get out of the cuffs or did he make them too tight?” Laura asked. It was a trick they had both mastered as children.