Second Life (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 4)

by D. F. Bailey

  Finch snapped his fingers as if they were both watching a magic act where a rabbit disappears through a top hat. He waited until Raymond looked him in the eyes again. When he did, Finch arched his brows with a look of assurance.

  Guzman nodded with a bleak expression. “You got this money on you?”

  He opened his billfold to display a stack of twenties. Guzman made a move to pull it into his hand, but Finch pocketed the cash and stood up.

  “After you show me where you got the jacket. And the .38.”

  ※

  Guzman and Finch strolled across the concourse under the City Hall rotunda. The cavernous space was surrounded by tiered galleries where visitors could peer down onto the walls and marble floors below. The centerpiece was a stepped-up podium at the foot of a grand staircase that descended from the second gallery. It reminded Finch of an ornate wedding cake with layer stacked upon layer — and at the top, a newly-wed couple posing arm in arm. Indeed, the podium often served as a venue for well-heeled locals to trade wedding vows. Or for public speakers to address corporate conferences and for politicians to make grand pronouncements.

  It had also served as the site for the debate between Kali Rood and Martin Fast. The acoustics were far from perfect for a debate, but during the war of words the hall had been filled to the upper gallery and the sheer mass of people in attendance had absorbed the potential echo of the debaters’ voices. It had been Martin Fast’s last public appearance.

  As he followed Guzman across the hall toward the men’s bathroom, Finch recalled Fast’s insightful words: “We’re one step away from the chimps and bonobos.”

  And the madmen, Finch added to himself.

  “Over here,” Guzman said in a soft voice. He spoke as if he didn’t want to be overheard by the passing groups of tourists and city employees as he returned to the scene of his thefts and muggings.

  Finch followed him into the long, wide bathroom. Another ornate heritage space finished with polished marble tiles.

  “So this is where you got the jacket?”

  Guzman walked to the end of the row of stalls, checking under the doorways as he lumbered along. When he was confident they were alone, he crooked a thumb at the last stall. “In here,” he said.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Where Lenny hid hisself.”

  Finch walked past the line of urinals to the last stall and nudged the door ajar with an elbow. He took a moment to envision the scenario. Toby Squire had been a huge man, just under seven feet, broad and very heavy. A bear. Anyone who came across him would be intimidated.

  “What was the play, Raymond? You’d follow a patsy inside and if the coast was clear you’d give Lenny a signal and the two of you would mug him?”

  Guzman shrugged a bleak acknowledgement. Finch understood that he didn’t want to say anything incriminating, especially here at the scene of a crime. He scanned the ceiling for CCTV cameras. Nothing.

  “What about building security?”

  “They clock in once an hour. You wait for them, they make their sweep, then we’d move in.”

  He pointed to the security lock on the wall next to the row of sinks opposite the stalls. Finch examined the mechanism, a timed key system, that required the guard to turn his key in the lock as he made his rounds. When the key rotated it generated an electronic time stamp and the guard moved on to the next station.

  Finch turned around and stepped back to Guzman. “So then what?”

  “Depends. It worked different every time.”

  “Tell me about the time with the Armani jacket. Did you know who he was?”

  He shook his head. “No names. It’s always best.”

  “You ever see him before?”

  “Never.”

  “What about after?”

  “I don’t go looking.”

  “All right. Then what?”

  “He came in”—Guzman glanced at the bathroom door again—“then me. He wore a hoodie. Took it off soon as he got in here. Underneath that he wore the jacket. Matched his pants, a full-on suit. Then he walks over to the sink”—Guzman leaned over the sink as if he were about to wash his hands and face—“takes off the jacket and lays it next to his hoodie right here.” He pointed to the counter under the soap and towel dispenser.

  “And then?”

  “Then he starts to scrub up and I give the cough”—he let out a sharp, guttural cough—“Lenny sweeps out of the stall and makes the grift.”

  Again Will took a moment to imagine the scene as it must have unfolded. The bear appears as if from nowhere, leans on his victim and sweeps any valuables into his arms, then makes a run for the door.

  “What about Mr. X. He didn’t put up a fight?”

  “Oh, he put up fight enough.” Guzman pointed to the bruise on his cheek. “Must have taken me five minutes to put him down.”

  “What? You killed him?”

  Guzman scoffed at the idea. “I never done that to nobody. And don’t be saying I did.”

  “What about Lenny?”

  “Last I seen him. From what I hear, he was dead three hours later.”

  “I know. I was there.” He shrugged as if the suicide still didn’t make sense. “Why’d he do it?”

  Guzman glanced away as if he were recalling something his friend had once confessed. “He told me he’d never go to prison. That he’d sooner be dead than locked in a cage with a bunch of monkeys.”

  Finch tried to fit the pieces together. “And where’d he get the gun?”

  He hiked his shoulders. “I told you from the beginning. I never seen it. I don’t know dick about any gun.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Raymond. There’s no payoff until I know how he got the .38.”

  Guzman’s face slumped into a worried sneer. “I’m not shittin’ you. If he had a gun, it must of been in that jacket of yours.”

  Finch considered this. He decided to ask Eve to test the jacket pockets for gunshot residues. Maybe Guzman had it right. The hitter had shot Martin Fast, slipped the gun into the suit pocket under his hoodie, then made his way back to City Hall to change. If the timing was right, it made sense.

  “So when did all this go down?”

  He shrugged with a blank look.

  “You said the guards roll through here once an hour. And you set up the hit just after they key-in and move on. So what time was it?”

  Guzman stared across the room for a moment and then blinked as if the answer just struck him.

  “It was always at fifteen minutes. It’s on the half hour at the library. And exactly on the hour at the bus depot.”

  Finch shook his head in wonder. The two cons had a schedule of muggings timed to avoid the security rotations around town.

  “So it would’ve been one-fifteen,” he said.

  Guzman’s eyes brightened once more. “Yeah.”

  Finch checked his watch. Eleven-sixteen. And at that moment the door swung open and in walked a security guard wearing a bleached white shirt, black tie, pressed pants and a key attached to his belt by a retracting steel coil. He nodded to Finch and Guzman, walked to the security lock, keyed in and moved on. One minute late, give or take fifteen seconds.

  “So that’s how it works?” Finch asked.

  “Yeah. That’s it.” Guzman glanced away.

  Finch studied him a moment and detected a sense of shame. He was sure now that Guzman didn’t have anything to do with Fast’s murder. He was just another con man, a grifter who’d run his long stretch of good luck into the dirt.

  ※ — TEN — ※

  THE NEXT MORNING Will and Eve drove down to the eXpress office together. They entered the board room and sat at the massive oak table across from Wally Gimbel. Fiona Page sat at his right, Gabe Finkleman on his left. Wally immediately took charge of the meeting.

  “Gabe, Fiona,” he began, “in case you haven’t met her, this is Eve Noon. Eve’s the new associate publisher and part owner of the eXpress, therefore technically your boss.” He smiled an
d waited for the notion to sink in. “She’ll be joining us for a lot of editorial meetings especially now that we’re re-positioning the eXpress to cover crime and corruption—which, as an ex-member of our illustrious SFPD, happens to be her home turf.

  “All right,” he continued, “Will asked for this meeting because of a story that’s breaking right now.” He pointed his index finger at Will. “So, tell us what you’ve got.”

  Finch leaned down to the floor and pulled three objects from his bag and set them on the table: the photo of Toby Squire and Raymond Guzman, the list of twenty-four names, and the Armani jacket which he laid on the surface of the table.

  “Okay, this goes back to the day when I spotted Toby Squire and followed him along Turk Street to a dead end lane where he shot himself.” He paused to look at the others. “We now know that the pistol he used was the same .38 that killed Martin Fast earlier the same day. Eve has already verified the details with the SFPD. No question. It’s the same gun.”

  “The ballistic forensics and gunpowder residues are all a match,” she said. “There’s no way to dispute the forensic report.”

  “Now following the suicide,” Will continued, “on the way back to my car, I noticed this jacket lying over a railing in the park.” He lifted a sleeve and rubbed the cuff between his thumb and index finger as if he were assessing the fabric quality. “When I saw him in the park, Squire had the jacket in his lap—but then left it behind when I confronted him. Something bothered me about that, I don’t know what exactly, so I brought it home and showed it to Eve.”

  Eve held up a hand, a gesture for Will to pause a moment, and turned to Finkleman. “Gabe, you probably don’t know this, but last year, Toby Squire attacked me—”

  “Brutally attacked her,” Fiona interjected.

  “So when I saw the jacket,” Eve nodded at Fiona and pressed on, “my nerves took over and we hid it in the storage locker where it sat for the next few days. When I took it out I discovered a slip of paper in a secret pocket.” She passed the paper to Fiona.

  “It looks like a Twitter handle,” Fiona said. “But one that’s really arcane.”

  She passed the paper to Wally. A puzzled look crossed his face.

  “All right,” he sighed. “Somebody please tell me what this means.”

  “So when you look up @r3v3lationnow on Twitter the user is identified as I.M. Unknown,” Finch said.

  “I’m unknown?” Wally frowned and glanced away with a look of disbelief.

  “But the page contains a web link.” Eve picked up the thread. “When you click the link it takes you to a list of names. Last week, the list had twenty-three names. Until Will’s name was added to the bottom of the file. He became number twenty-four.”

  Finch passed print copies of the list to Fiona and Wally. Then he turned to Finkleman. “I’ll let Gabe fill you in. He’s already spent a few hours trying to make sense of it.”

  Finkleman coughed into his fist and leaned forward. “All right. It’s complicated, but let me try to walk you through this.”

  He opened his research binder to the first page. Over the next ten minutes he revealed what he’d told Finch in the coffee shop. As he spoke his voice grew increasingly anxious. When he completed his summary and it became obvious to Wally and Fiona that Will was in danger, the mood in the room shifted. A dark chill descended on them and Wally looked from face to face.

  “So what you’re telling us, is that this is a hit list of academics, researchers and reporters who are being murdered one by one, every few weeks.” He sounded as if he were accusing Finkleman of the crimes. “Do I have that right?”

  “Every nine days. On average,” Finkleman said and slumped into the back of his chair.

  “And what’s this?” Wally demanded as he pointed at the polaroid picture.

  “A picture of Toby Squire and Raymond Guzman.” Finch passed the picture to Wally. “It took me a while, but I tracked Guzman down to a flophouse on Ellis Street. He told me how he and Squire had developed a mugging operation in City Hall, the library and bus station. More important, he confessed that he and Toby stole the jacket in one of the men’s rooms in City Hall.”

  “When was this?”

  “Less than an hour after Martin Fast was murdered on Market Street.”

  “What?” Wally snarled. “And who the hell owns that jacket?”

  “John Doe.” Finch hiked his shoulders, a gesture to acknowledge that the trail had gone cold. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see any CCTV cameras in the washroom. Weeks have gone by so … I just don’t know.”

  “You were there?” Fiona asked.

  “Yeah. Yesterday Guzman walked me through the entire scam.”

  “Where’s Guzman now?” Wally asked in a more even tone, as if he was just coming to grips with the gravity of the situation.

  Finch shrugged again. “I don’t know. He’s worried. He’s done time twice already. He knows on the third strike it could be for life. If he’s smart he’ll move to a country with no US extradition treaties. Venezuela. Maybe Ecuador.”

  Wally rolled his head from side to side with a doubtful look. “All right. Will, what’s your theory on this?”

  Finch placed his hands on the table. “It begins with the list. With what we know for sure. Three dead already. One of them is Martin Fast. Let’s start with him.”

  He glanced at the ceiling and continued. “John Doe carries a .38 pistol in the pocket of an Armani suit”—he waved a hand at the jacket—“over the jacket he wears a sweatshirt with a hoodie so he can cover his face. Sometime after the debate with Kali Rood, he follows Martin Fast to the Triple-8 on Market Street. Before he enters the store he pulls the hood over his head, draws the gun into his hand, and does the robbery. He starts screaming to convince everyone he’s out of his mind on drugs, grabs all the bills from the cash register, points the pistol at Fast and executes him: one shot to the chest, one to the head.”

  He paused as if the events were just now lining up in his mind and the sequence finally stood in proper order.

  “Then he shoves the cash into one pocket in the Armani jacket, and the gun back into the other. Before anyone can catch their breath, he’s out the door and walks the two blocks back to City Hall. He enters the bathroom, tugs off the sweatshirt and the jacket so he can wash up at the sink and remove any traces of gunshot residue.

  “Then Raymond Guzman follows him into the bathroom where Toby Squire is hiding in the last stall. Apart from John Doe, Guzman sees the room is empty, gives the signal—a loud cough—and Squire appears. Together they make short work of the killer. Squire grabs the Armani jacket and hoodie and hobbles out of City Hall. Guzman stays behind to run interference, which turns into a brief sparring match with the gunman. As of yesterday, Guzman’s still sporting a bruise from the punch he took under one eye.”

  He stopped so that everyone could absorb the story. Was it probable? More important, was there a better, more likely scenario? He couldn’t think of one.

  “And that’s the last contact he had with Toby Squire?” Wally asked after no one offered any alternatives.

  “Guzman says he never saw him again. I believe him. I saw Squire with the jacket in the park. After he shot himself, Officer DeRosa said she found a wad of cash in his pocket. That means Squire had already taken the pistol and the cash from the jacket. After he’d emptied the pockets, he had no need for the jacket itself and left it behind. But he was wearing a hoodie sweatshirt when he was killed—probably the one used during the murder.”

  Then a new idea occurred to Finch. “What if we can get the cashier at the Triple-8 to identify the sweatshirt?”

  “Wouldn’t help your theory,” Eve said. “It would only support the SFPD claim that Toby Squire killed Martin Fast. They’ve already locked this case in the morgue. Don’t give them another reason to throw away the key.”

  “Right.” Finch nodded when he realized the error. It was too easy to overthink a theory and lead yourself astray.

&nbs
p; Everyone slipped into a moment of dazed silence. To Finch, the mood had shifted to a realization that they faced an insurmountable problem with little prospect of finding a solution. When he recovered his composure, Wally set his hands on the table and lowered his head. He reminded Finch of a pit bull preparing for a scrap.

  “All right, this is what we do. Our guiding principle is this: we will chase this story down until the SFPD reopen the murder case of Martin Fast. Gabe, I want you to keep working that list. Keep digging for commonalities, diversions, idiosyncrasies. If ten of them all use Delsey Toilet Tissue, I want to know it.”

  Finkleman replied with a leaden nod of his head.

  “Fiona, time to get the other writers in on this. I want you to assign Brian Stutz and Jenny Wengler to profile the two victims other than Martin Fast. Who were they again?”—he turned to Finkleman—“a Brit and a postdoc at MIT, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay then. Fiona, get them to profile these guys. First their career credentials, then their last days and hours leading up to their deaths. Tell them I said if there’s any hint that they were murdered, they’re to stick it in the lead paragraph.”

  Turning to Eve, he said, “Do you want to be part of this?”

  “I already am. Next to Will, I’ve got more skin in this game than anyone.”

  “All right. I know the SFPD don’t want to reopen this case but they’ll be forced to if we break the story and provide some evidence. Find out what it will take and work with Fiona on that. Maybe that jacket still holds some secrets. Fingerprints. Gunshot residues. Whatever.” He paused to consider any other angles. “Is there something else you think we should do to jack-hammer this thing open?”

  Eve nodded. “If there’s evidence of foul play in the death at MIT, that’ll bring in the FBI. And murder of the Brit means Interpol gets pulled in.”

  Wally rolled his lips together. “Yeah. It’s that big, isn’t it.”

  Again, everyone paused to absorb the implications.

  “And Will,” Wally continued in a tone to suggest he was wrapping up the meeting, “I want you to write the story we’ve got so far. Squire, Guzman, John Doe, the jacket and gun.”