by Ron Tierney
The store was crowded. The human instinct as the weather changed was to get in provisions. Maureen moved through the crowds easily. Shanahan couldn’t keep up. He waited by the door.
TWENTY
Kowalski joined Maureen and Shanahan at the Slippery Noodle, a blues bar just south of downtown. Given the time of evening, Shanahan would have liked to have begged off, but Kowalski was eager to get together after hearing about Holcomb and the secret tapes. Meeting at the bar was Kowalski’s idea because he had arranged to meet someone there later, quite likely a pretty woman whose day began after midnight.
Once past the hour and the volume, Shanahan relaxed a little. The club was old Indianapolis, nothing fancy. It had been around longer than he had, prospering despite the often-fickle public by always providing quality music.
Shanahan sat in the corner, listening to the band and sipping a whiskey. He would tell anyone who inquired that he felt like he’d been through the wringer, but wasn’t sure anyone would know what that meant. Maureen was on her second rum and tonic when Kowalski showed up as happy as Gollum with the ring.
They moved away from the big room with the stage toward the bar, sacrificing the best in live blues for enough quiet to hear each other talk.
‘If I look at your office, Kowalski, and I look at Holcomb’s, I’d have some questions.’
‘My clients are poorer. They steal a TV set or an iPhone,’ Kowalski said. ‘Holcomb’s clients steal an old couple’s retirement savings.’
‘Still,’ Shanahan said, ‘he’s pretty young …’
‘And brash and showy.’
‘So are you.’
‘You have a point there, except for the young part. Are you trying to make me unhappy with my life? Money isn’t everything.’
‘No. But I’m betting being a criminal defense attorney isn’t the only source of his income.’
‘And somehow, some way, you think this is connected to our slippery cop.’
‘And to land on Tenth Street, stretching down from Woodruff Place to Massachusetts Avenue.’
Maureen handed him a copy of the makeshift map.
‘And to the deaths of Alexandra Fournier, her brother Charles, and Nicky Hernandez,’ Shanahan added.
‘On the other hand, Card is showing no signs of coming into some money?’ Kowalski asked.
‘No, but he may avoid losing his pension and staying out of prison – where cops typically don’t do well – through Daniel Holcomb’s legal counsel, not to mention his leadership on the board looking into his case.’
‘What is Holcomb getting out of it is the question. May I keep the map?’ Kowalski folded it and tucked it into his coat pocket.
‘One other gaping mystery,’ Shanahan said. ‘The shooter.’
Kowalski leaned back. It was clear he was giving it some thought.
‘Collins said that Card did a stint in the Organized Crime unit,’ Shanahan said.
‘That could tie the shooter to Card and explain what Card was doing for our rich criminal defense attorney. He thinks he’s so good he can succeed in a life of crime.’ Kowalski laughed.
‘As an attorney, he stands the best chance,’ Shanahan said.
‘Maybe I can represent him.’
‘Or get rid of Holcomb,’ Maureen said, ‘and you’ve eliminated the competition.’
‘The criminally inclined global conglomerates won’t be asking me to dinner, I guarantee you,’ Kowalski said. ‘And if they did, that’s when I switch sides. Let me do some investigating on this property business. And Maureen, if you’re able to find out who owns some of this land, let me know, especially those who own more than one parcel. Commercial and residential. We can make some calls, see if Daniel Holcomb rings a bell.’
‘Or Tyrus Investments.’
‘Somebody has to have signed something. There may be no official file but contracts, filed or not, have to have signatures.’
Shanahan shivered his way to Maureen’s car while she held his arm and steadied his gait.
‘I didn’t mean to pull you so far into this,’ Shanahan said to Maureen as they climbed into bed. ‘You have your own work to do.’
‘I’m enjoying myself,’ she said. ‘However, it will cost you.’
‘How much?’
‘Think restaurants. Think sauces and flaming desserts.’
‘The stuff of nightmares.’
As habit was now demanding, Maureen drifted off to sleep quickly. Shanahan struggled. Morning meant a visit to the surgeon who, even though he’d doubled Shanahan’s anti-seizure medication after the event in the church, said it was time for a check-up. The whole idea of seizures was bad enough. What was worse for Shanahan was the increased dependence upon Maureen. Other than a couple of bullets over seven decades, he was a healthy human specimen. He had always taken care of himself. And he would take care of her, he thought, not the other way around.
However, he believed he was now half a Shanahan physically – he was feeble and tired easily – and he was very unsure of the percentage of his wholeness he maintained mentally.
The exam was quick. He answered a few questions, did a few finger exercises, squeezed the doctor’s hand and it was over. No change. Because of the seizures, the surgeon believed the inflammation and swelling remained. His left arm was nearly useless. More time, the doctor implied. Instead of gradually reducing the steroids, he was switched to a different type of steroid.
It was still morning. Outside was fresh, clear and cool. There would be sun today. Light but not heat. He wished he were recovering, but he’d have to be satisfied that things weren’t getting worse. The case, on the other hand, was on the edge. It could go either way.
The days he would be on Jennifer Bailey’s payroll were coming to an end, but in Shanahan’s mind that didn’t mean the investigation would. Necessarily. Shanahan had something to work with: the connection between Card and Holcomb. The video established the connection, but did not clarify it. Both people, who would not even know each other in the day-to-day world, except for their common interest in crime, had to be getting something from the connection.
‘I have something to show you when we get home,’ Maureen said.
‘What?’
‘I want to show you. Something I found while you were in the shower. I don’t know if it means anything.’
‘I almost didn’t bring it up,’ Maureen said, opening her laptop on the kitchen table as Shanahan unfolded the morning paper.
He heard the keyboard clicking away as he searched for news related to Fournier.
‘Benzie’s,’ she said. The screen showed the image Shanahan had seen before when they were looking up Card’s girlfriend, Samantha Byers.
‘Yes?’ Shanahan was puzzled. Nothing new. Samantha, probably a prostitute, had used the motel’s address briefly as a mail drop.
Maureen moved the cursor to satellite view and clicked. From above Benzie’s was a square box surrounded on all sides by a parking lot. The lot was large and could accommodate a few big rigs. At the back, the lot was bordered by mature bushes. There was a small gap in the wall of shrubbery. Behind the lot and accessible through the gap was open field. On it was what appeared to be a house trailer.
‘Have we found Samantha?’ Shanahan said.
‘What’s this “we” stuff?’ Maureen asked. ‘And why so much stealth? If she were a prostitute and I were a John, I’d be a little wary of a hidden trailer.’ She smiled in victory.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘You remember the riddle that went around a few years ago? A father and son are in a car accident. The father dies instantly. The son is taken to the hospital. The doctor takes one look at him and says: “I can’t operate on him! He’s my son!” Since his father died in the accident, how can this be?’
‘Because the doctor is the boy’s mother. Yes, I remember. What does this …?’
‘The shooter is a woman. Samantha Myers is the sniper, not a prostitute.’
Shanahan kissed her on the for
ehead.
‘This is the Card–Holcomb connection. Card, through his work for the Organized Crime unit, got the hitman, or in this case, hitwoman, for Holcomb, who has probably never met Samantha or even knows her name.’
It made perfect sense. Holcomb, with his political ambition and his spotless family background, would keep the sleazy details at arm’s length. The protection strategy comes from the mind of a lawyer or someone very, very clever.
‘Now what? You’ll call Captain Collins?’
‘Just Collins. It’ll take three hours to get to South Bend.’
‘Why not just let the police do it all?’
‘I want to make sure I’m right. And all they’ll do is scare her away.’
He waved at Harold, who sat waiting patiently in the drive. Harold didn’t wave back. Shanahan picked up the phone, called Collins. Got voicemail.
‘Get to South Bend. It’s a bit of a gamble, but there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll have the sniper for you, all tied up in a bow. I’ll call you on your cell when it’s time. Be ready to move quickly and with force. She’s armed and dangerous. We’ll likely be on the south side of South Bend.’ Shanahan withheld all specifics.
TWENTY-ONE
‘Where to?’ Harold asked.
‘South Bend.’
Shanahan wasn’t sure whether nothing flustered Harold or whether Harold was determined never to show surprise or frustration. He backed from the drive. Getting to Benzie’s didn’t require a map. Washington Street, the city’s main east–west corridor, to Meridian Street, main north–south corridor. Turn right and keep driving for two and a half hours.
‘Harold, could I get your opinion?’ Shanahan asked when they finally escaped the outlying suburban remnants of the city and onto the flat, straight highway that cut through barren fields. Only months ago they gave up tons of corn and soybeans. ‘Let’s say you are God Almighty …’
‘A minor leap of faith.’
‘And you must punish three murderers. One found the person to do the killing. One paid the person to do the killing. And one who did the killing. Is any one of them guiltier than the other?’
‘Hang all three of them.’
‘All right, slightly different question. Two murderers this time. One murderer does it at a distance, coldly, quickly and possibly painlessly. The other does it up close and personal. The victim dies more slowly, scared and in serious pain.’
Harold shakes his head. ‘Not my idea of fun, playing these games.’
‘We’re playing for real now.’
‘We’re going to see Samantha Byers,’ Harold said.
‘We are.’
‘All this for a girlfriend?’
‘Hired assassin. She’s tried to stay off the grid, but maybe she’s still clutching at the edge. I think she’s more than a honey pot.’
‘Why don’t you call the police?’
‘Seems to be a popular refrain. I might be crazy and she might merely be a working girl or some fool who has a crush on Leonard Card. But if she is the sniper I don’t want the police to blow it. It could get back to Card. He seems capable of slipping through their hands. Or she might get lost in Chicago. That would take her less than half an hour. She has no identity. If she gets away, she might never be found.’
‘So the only way any of this is done right is if you do it yourself?’
‘I couldn’t put it any different myself.’
The only sound for a while was the steady hum of the tires on the highway.
After several silent miles, Harold spoke: ‘Extra pain and suffering seems cause enough for a more severe punishment.’
By the time they reached the turn-off for Kokomo, chain store America reared its ugly and welcomed head. Shanahan needed something to eat and Harold, who had nursed his thermos of coffee for hours, needed to make room for a refill. Popping up out of the mostly flat barren winter fields were gas stations and fast-food joints made of brick and neon.
The two of them stood outside, Shanahan eating a fish sandwich, careful not to knock over his coffee resting on the trunk.
‘Still almost two more hours of this before we turn around and see the same thing on the way back.’ Harold looked up the road. ‘What if she’s not there?’
‘I’m kind of hoping she isn’t.’
‘What?’
‘You think I’m going to arrest her? Shoot her?’ Shanahan asked.
‘Why are we doing this?’
‘To find out who she is, if she is the shooter. If she is, then we can connect most of the dots.’
‘If not?’
‘Maybe we learn something, maybe we don’t. You know how this works. You remember, don’t you?’
Harold didn’t answer, which meant he understood. He didn’t like it, but he understood.
‘You’ve only got two days,’ Harold said.
‘I’ve got the rest of my life.’
‘Not a big difference, is there?’ Harold smiled and went to the driver’s-side door.
Shanahan was reminded of Kowalski’s comment at his house on White River that recent afternoon. Their talks usually evolved into universal themes. Death, being the most certain at the same time the most mysterious, was among them. On this occasion Kowalski quoted Voltaire on his deathbed. When asked by a priest if he would renounce Satan, Voltaire said, ‘Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies.’
Shanahan made up his mind to be civil to Harold, despite the man’s obvious disapproval. Could be bitterness. As an ex-cop, he probably resented Bailey hiring someone else, especially a PI, and more especially an old, broken PI. Harold had the qualifications. Why? Shanahan wondered why she didn’t trust him.
‘Maybe she’ll let you take over if the case isn’t resolved,’ Shanahan said.
Harold said nothing, gave nothing away.
Out of the windows, the empty countryside kept repeating itself. Occasionally there were birds on a wire, a billboard, a barn, a clump of trees, a few black-and-white cows in no special hurry to be anywhere or do anything. Occasionally there was a truckload of hogs passing too closely on the left, the stench somehow squeezing through the closed windows.
‘We’re all on the road to somewhere,’ Harold said. ‘They say pigs are smart. Do you think they have any idea where they’re going?’
Silence dominated the next hour.
‘Ever shoot a woman, Harold?’
‘I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone who invited so much disdain.’
‘I’m honored. I know I have a talent for pissing people off, but I had no idea I’d reached the level of “inviting disdain.” Kind of classy. Thanks, Harold.’
‘Don’t mention it. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention much of anything.’
Harold’s own disdain could have come about naturally. Shanahan wasn’t a team player and he spoke plainly – too plainly sometimes. But there was no doubt Jennifer Bailey’s lack of appreciation for Harold’s professionalism and the years he’d spent earning her trust contributed to his humiliation. To top it off, Harold was driving Shanahan around.
Oddly, it was because neither Bailey nor Shanahan minced their words that she went with Shanahan. He wasn’t an employee. But there was nothing he could say to Harold to bridge the gap of resentment without creating more.
Shanahan left the floating world behind. He could sense the car coming to a stop, hear the turn signals, feel the turn. He opened his eyes to see the motel, Benzie’s, slide past the car window.
‘I wish I could get paid to sleep,’ Harold said.
‘You mind cruising the parking lot a few times?’ Shanahan asked, ignoring the sarcasm. It was serious business now.
‘A silver Malibu?’ asked Harold.
‘Right.’ Harold remembered. A good sign.
‘Not yet. I’ve been looking.’
‘Could be in the field by the trailer,’ Shanahan said.
‘Or behind it.’
They circled the motel parking lot three times. Picku
p trucks, beat-up vans and a variety of cars and SUVs, many of them silver. There was probably no better car to pick than a silver or gray, smallish sedan if the driver wanted to go unnoticed. That would certainly be something a hitman, or woman, would value. No late model Malibu on the lot.
‘Drop me off in front, park to see that gap to the field, and be prepared for a quick getaway.’
Shanahan walked slowly around the motel. Slowly because he wanted to give Harold time to get settled and because, as an old friend used to say, ‘his get-up-and-go got up and went.’
He moved even more slowly toward the opening in the bushes, an opening easily wide enough for a car. He saw the trailer. Pink. Small. Probably a one-bedroom. He’d been inside enough trailers to know the layout, especially as they were defined by the placement of the windows and doors. Living room on the far right, kitchen, bath, bedroom. There would be only two doors to the outside, both on the same side. One opened into the living room, the other the bedroom.
No light on inside. No tire tracks to indicate a car had pulled around back on a regular basis. She wasn’t there. He looked at his watch. 3 p.m.
When she wasn’t killing people, did she have a day job? Was she just out on an errand? Lunch?
He looked down at himself. He wished he looked a bit scruffier. If there were someone on the other side of the door, he could claim he was looking for work. Odd jobs. Handyman kinds of things.
There was no answer. He was insistent. If she was inclined to not answering in hopes the visitor would go away, he had to be irritating enough to make her come to the door to dismiss him. She wasn’t there. With his left hand only partially connected to his brain, picking even this simple lock was not a simple task. He dropped the pick twice.
Inside was almost as cold as outside. Apparently she conserved on heating bills. But that also meant she probably wasn’t on a quick errand. Dirty avocado-colored dishes were in the sink. An empty beanie-weenie can was on the counter. The wastebasket was filled with empty Diet Coke cans. There was a blanket on the small sofa that faced a large flat-screen TV. Towels were carelessly hung in the shower area. The bed was unmade. She may be a perfectionist when it came to taking down her prey, but she wasn’t a fastidious housekeeper.